


The World Has No Right to My Heart

by usuallyproperlyhydrated



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F, clarke is a sadass, post-S2 reunion
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-17
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-04-26 21:01:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 43,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5020405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/usuallyproperlyhydrated/pseuds/usuallyproperlyhydrated
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Be careful with that one, love--she will do what it takes to survive."<br/>(Quote and title from "Burn" from Hamilton)</p><p>Lexa has been watching Clarke since the fall of the mountain and does everything in her power to convince her to come to Polis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Lexa tells herself that the reason she has warriors watching the altercation at Mount Weather so carefully is because she needs to make sure that the Mountain Men won’t go back on their treaty and attack the _Trikru_ as soon as they’ve finished harvesting the Sky People.

She doesn’t specifically ask them to keep an eye on their leader, who is standing outside of the mountain (safe, Lexa reminds herself), undoubtedly consumed with a lethal combination of fury and helplessness.

When her scout Annan returns to Lexa’s tent, which has been pitched some distance away from the mountain after sending the rest of her troops back to their homes, he tells her that Clarke of the Sky People has succeeded in freeing her people from the grasp of the Mountain Men. She thanks him for the intelligence and dismisses him. Once he is gone, Lexa allows herself to let out a sigh of relief and even a small chuckle.

If anyone could free her people despite the enormous odds stacked against her, it would be Clarke.

Had Clarke still been her ally, Lexa would have celebrated the victory with a day of feasting and sparring, a brief day of warmth and light before the coming winter months. Such an achievement was incredible and ought to be rewarded.

Which is why Lexa feels a wave of indignation when Annan reports that Clarke has left the camp and taken to the woods without anyone to assist her. Her first thought is that Clarke has been exiled by the very people she had given everything to save, and that is unacceptable. Lexa stays in her tent for days, waiting anxiously for the scout to return and tell her what path the Sky leader has been taking. When it becomes clear that Clarke isn’t taking a specific path to anywhere, Lexa gives charge of her horse and her tent to Annan to take back to Polis.

“But _heda_ ,” he says as she takes the stakes out of the ground. “What shall I tell the clan leaders?”

“Tell them that there is no immediate threat from the Mountain Men or the Sky People, so they will see me when I return.”

“But where should I say you are?”

Lexa thinks about this for a brief moment, winding up the ropes that have held her tent aloft.

“Tell them that I am on a journey to meditate,” she says at last. “I must think about the future of our nation undisturbed by their squabbles and the noise of the city.”

“Then this has nothing to do with Clarke _com skaikru_?”

Lexa shoulders her pack. She is wearing nondescript clothes that will allow her to pass through the woods undetected by animals and humans alike.

“No.”

Annan waits until he thinks that Lexa isn’t looking before giving her a dubious look. She returns it with a fierce glare that reminds him what his place is and what hers is.

It takes only a day of walking to find Clarke’s makeshift camp. Although she has clearly been making an effort not to leave a trail, her precautions were nowhere good enough to keep a real tracker from following her. Lexa knew from Annan’s reports that Clarke had been following a pattern of walking for hours on end and then falling down and sleeping wherever she happened to be. Sometimes she slept during the day, sometimes she slept during the night. It seems as though she’s pushing herself to the brink of exhaustion just to be able to sleep at all.

Lexa can relate.

Sometimes she stopped to gather nuts or berries, but for the most part it seemed as though Clarke is intent on starving herself, a fact which simultaneously annoys and worries Lexa.

Lexa hovers in the tree line, unsure of how to approach Clarke, who is sleeping between two tree roots with a troubled expression on her face. She doesn’t want to be there when the Sky girl wakes up because clutched in her hands are a spear and a knife, both of considerable size. Besides, she isn’t really sure what she’s going to say or even if Clarke will let her say anything before running her through.

Instead she silently creeps close enough to hear Clarke’s uneven breaths and deposits some of her food supplies on a leaf on the ground. It isn’t much—just some jerky and berries—but it’s more than Clarke’s eaten for a while, if her rumbling stomach is anything to go off of. Lexa then retreats back into the trees, climbing one so she has a better vantage point in case any creatures decide they want to make a meal of Clarke.

Tonight is one of the rare nights that Clarke sleeps normal hours, and she starts to stir just before dawn. She sits up suddenly, as though from a nightmare, her panicked breathing echoing through the trees. As her breathing slows, she notices the offering of food.

She refuses to touch it. For a good hour, Clarke sits there against the tree roots, glaring at the jerky and berries as if she suspects them of being poisoned.

“I know you’re there,” Clarke calls angrily.

Lexa knows that Clarke is bluffing, that she can’t possibly know that Lexa is there, but she still can’t help the wild thump her heart gives at hearing Clarke’s voice again.

Clarke waits a while longer for her follower to give themselves up, then kicks dirt over the fruit and meat and begins crashing through the underbrush, away from Lexa. Lexa jumps down out of the tree after a suitable interval and continues on her trail.

Clarke doesn’t stop walking until far after sundown—the place where she ends up is a tall, flat rock formation of some sort, perhaps some ruin of a building—and even when she collapses in a shivering heap, she doesn’t sleep. Lexa irritably thinks that Clarke would sleep better if she actually ate once in a while. She isn’t about to try to offer Clarke food again, though.

The moon is bright and almost harsh as Lexa watches Clarke pick up a piece of bark and begin making wild strokes on the wall, the dark lines barely showing on the dirty surface. Clarke continues as if a woman possessed. Vague shapes begin to take form and Lexa moves further along her branch to see if she can make them out. She’s still too far away.

There’s a bright glint as Clarke removes her knife from its sheath and brings it across her arm, the red blood looking black in the moonlight. Lexa blinks, unsure if what she’s seeing is really happening. Clarke can’t truly be trying to end her life, can she?

Lexa is about to cry out, to give up her position, when Clarke dips her fingers in the blood and begins mixing it into her drawing on the wall. A stroke here and a swipe there until Clarke stands back, eying her work, and stems the bleeding with a piece of cloth torn from her shirt.

Then she turns her back on the wall and curls up in a ball, asleep almost instantly.

Lexa’s body doesn’t move, but her mind is working frantically trying to figure out what Clarke is up to. Is the painting meant to be some sort of message? To her people?

It couldn’t hurt to look, she reasons as she shimmies down the tree’s trunk. Just for a minute. Just to get a better bearing on what, precisely, Clarke was doing out here in the woods. She would just look at it and then get back to a safe distance.

As she slinks forward in the shadows, Lexa keeps one eye on Clarke’s sleeping form and the other on her destination. When she reaches the wall, however, her breath catches and it’s all she can do to stay upright.

It’s a massacre.

Clarke has painted scores of dead bodies, some stained with blood—their blood, her blood—but all covered in sores and blisters. Men, women, and children—all dressed in the clothes of the Mountain Men—lay slumped over one another. Even Lexa’s war-hardened stomach churns as she takes in the details, not so much at the carnage but at the sheer amounts of anguish that seem to be radiating from it. Somehow Clarke has managed to convey the brutality and heart-breaking reality of slaughtered people as if she herself had been one of them.

As if she herself is mourning them.

Lexa is so hypnotized by the work of Clarke’s hands that she doesn’t fully register crunch of leaves behind her, and by the time she realizes that Clarke is no longer sleeping, Lexa’s legs have been swept out from under her and she is lying prone on her back, a knife pressed to her throat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think! The next chapter will be from Clarke's perspective, and Lexa reveals a big secret to convince Clarke to come with her to Polis.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke knows that Lexa has been following her, and she's pissed. She doesn't let Lexa off the hook easily, refusing to be persuaded to go to Polis, until Lexa tells her her most precious and carefully-guarded secret.

“Do you think I’m stupid?” is the first thing Clarke hisses at Lexa.

Lexa doesn’t answer, and that infuriates Clarke more than if Lexa had said “yes.” She merely peers up at her with her habitually cool and detached eyes, eyes that speak of betrayal and casual killing and surviving instead of thriving.

But there is also softness.

It’s the softness that Clarke can’t bear—no, not softness. It’s the raw pity in her eyes that shows that Lexa has seen a fraction of the kind of images that torture Clarke in her waking and sleeping hours. Lexa must certainly be judging her for being weak, for not being able to shrug off genocide and go back to living her normal life.

“I know you’ve been following me.”

Despite the exhaustion that is pounding in her head and joints, Clarke is certain of the fact that she’s been followed. At first she had assumed that it was Bellamy—loyal Bellamy—come to coax her back to Camp Jaha, but when he didn’t make contact, she assumed the worst.

Lexa, having not been satisfied with leaving Clarke at the mercy of Mount Weather, must have ordered one of her warriors to tail Clarke and finish the job. The berries and meat had been a clumsy assassination attempt, one that had driven Clarke to the edge of her patience and caused her to yell out at her unseen but omnipresent shadow.

Clarke hadn’t intended to draw the assassin into a trap with her larger-than-life drawing. That had been sheer luck. And she certainly hadn’t expected the high and mighty commander to be the one who stooped to such a lowly task as killing one Sky girl.

“If you’re here to kill me, you might as well have put an arrow in my heart days ago,” she says. “Unless you’re not content to just kill me. Maybe all this time, you’ve been punishing me for killing your warriors at the drop ship. You’ve been slowly hacking away at me, taking away who I am piece by piece until I don’t even recognize myself anymore, and it isn’t until now that I’ve suffered enough to have rightfully earned death.”

“Clarke, I—”

They’re the first words Clarke has heard anyone speak since Bellamy’s farewell, and the first words she’s heard Lexa speak since her emotionless “may we meet again.” Just as the first time when she saw Lexa sitting on her throne, Clarke is momentarily taken aback by just how high her voice is. It’s more fitting for a young girl than it is for a blood thirsty commander.

Clarke is sitting on Lexa’s chest and she knows that she’s restricting the commander’s breathing, but she can’t bring herself to care. The weary ache in her very tissue is mingling with white-hot anger, and all she wants to do is say things that she knows will hurt Lexa.

She doesn’t, though.

Not yet.

Not until she determines just how much Lexa should suffer.

“Why are you here?” she demands.

Lexa licks her lips before she responds.

“I came to find out what you did to the Mountain Men.”

“You don’t need to hear it from me.” Clarke fights the mad desire to laugh. “Just go inside. The door’s wide open—anyone can go see what I’ve done.”

“They’re dead.” It isn’t a question. “All of them?”

“Every last one of them.” It is a challenge to keep her tone steady and neutral to match Lexa’s, but Clarke still does it. She can’t show any weakness to her captive because she knows from experience that any and all weaknesses will be exploited. Nothing will be out of bounds.

Part of her wonders why she hasn’t slit Lexa’s throat already. It wasn’t as though Lexa would have hesitated if their roles were reversed. If Clarke had been the one to make the deal with Mount Weather, Lexa wouldn’t have rested for a minute until Clarke’s head was mounted on a spike for everyone to see.

The other part of her knows the answer, but she pushes it aside.

“How?” Lexa asks.

“Radiation.”

Lexa blinks slowly, her eyes taking in every single detail of Clarke’s face.

“I’m sorry.”

Clarke really does laugh this time, a bitter barking sound, and in her mirthless amusement she loosens her grip on the knife the slightest bit.

“Really? That’s surprising because the last time we talked, you were all for going in there and slaughtering every single one of them anyway. Are you just trying to appear human?” Clarke shoots. “Is this some twisted way for you to get back into my good graces and then literally stab me in the back while I’m sleeping?”

The onslaught of abuse from Clarke has barely seemed to scathe Lexa, who is as composed as ever.

“I didn’t say I was sorry for them.”

It takes a moment for her words to register, but when they do, it feels like a boot to the gut. Unbidden, hot tears spring to her eyes and it’s all she can do to keep them at bay.

“Keep your pity,” Clarke snarls, readjusting the position of the knife so it’s right against Lexa’s jugular. “Why are you here?”

“To keep an eye on you. Where are you going?”

“Why do you want to keep an eye on me?”

Lexa’s eyes briefly flick to Clarke’s mural, barely visible over the Sky girl’s shoulder, then they settle back on Clarke’s face.

“I have a duty to make sure that my people are safe.”

Her words burn in Clarke’s throat and nose, as if they were as toxic as the radiation that killed everyone in Mount Weather. Clarke gets off of Lexa’s chest and stumbles backwards, her hands shaking so badly that the knife drops to the ground with a soft thump.

“You think…” She breathes deeply to steady herself. “You think I’m on some sort of revenge mission? To slaughter all of the grounders?”

“Clarke, that’s not—”

Lexa is standing now, everything in her posture betraying that she is on her guard. Uncharacteristically, though, she hasn’t drawn a weapon, and her hand isn’t even resting on her sword.

“That’s exactly what you meant, commander” she says hollowly, leaning her back against the mural. “You know what I did to those people, and you want to make sure that I’m not going to do the same thing to your people. Well, don’t worry. Radiation won’t do anything to the grounders, and I don’t have access to any missiles. It’s just me and the spear and the knife. Your people have nothing to fear from me.”

The words are a cruel echo of what Lexa had said about Octavia in her tent before the battle for the mountain.

Before she’d kissed Clarke so softly and so gently that Clarke hadn’t hesitated even slightly before kissing her back.

Before she’d handed the Arkers over to Cage and his doctors in Mount Weather.

“It’s going to be winter soon,” Lexa says, looking anywhere but Clarke’s face or the mural. “You’ll freeze.”

“That isn’t your problem.”

“Clarke—”

“I’ll find a cave somewhere,” Clarke says, mostly to shut Lexa up. “I’ll find a cave and like skin a deer or something to stay warm. Happy? Now go away.”

Lexa makes no move to leave.

“It isn’t safe in the woods, even if you’ve got some sort of deer skin to keep you warm.”

“Really? Because until a while ago, my only enemies were President Wallace and the grounders, and now I’ve killed President Wallace and everyone he’s ever known, even the grounders are scared to approach me. So it looks like I’ll be okay.

“It isn’t just people you should fear. There are creatures prowling around—” Lexa begins.

“Like big cats? Enormous flesh-eating gorillas?” Clarke snorts. “I can take care of myself. And at least they’re honest in their intentions. They won’t tell me that they care and then chew me up and spit me out. Honestly, commander, my biggest threat in these woods is you, and if you would just leave, that would be taken care of really fast.”

“I haven’t come to kill you.”

“And I should believe that?” Clarke doesn’t even let Lexa open her mouth this time. She hates that she can’t keep the venomous words from coming out of her mouth, but it feels so cathartic to get them out of her mind and heart, where they’ve been festering. “Just save it, okay? Isn’t there somewhere you should be? Isn’t there some treaty you should be going back on somewhere? Ideally somewhere far away from here.”

If Lexa is hurt by Clarke’s accusation, she doesn’t let it show on her face. Ever the disciplined commander, she merely stands there and takes the abuse.

Clarke leans her head back against the wall and stares up into the sky. If Lexa has come to slit her throat, she might as well give her a clear shot. The stars are weakening in the light of the rapidly-approaching dawn, and their dreary flickering suits Clarke’s mood.

“I want you to come to Polis with me.”

“How far is it?” It isn’t an outright rejection, and Clarke is half-surprised at herself for that. She ought to be stronger, not to let herself get so swayed by Lexa’s words.

“A few days’ journey.”

“Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why do you want me to come to Polis with you?”

Lexa rocks on her feet slightly, as if weighing her possible answers in terms of how much they would piss Clarke off.

“Because it’s not safe out here.”

“Yeah, you already said that, and I already established that I’m safer here alone than I am anywhere with you. If you’re so concerned about me freezing to death or getting eaten by wolves, just bring me a blanket and some more weapons.”

“If that’s what you wish, I will do that.” Lexa’s voice is soft. “But there are things I want you to see in Polis.”

“Like what?”

“Potters and painters and sculptors and scholars…”

 Clarke closes her eyes, wondering just what it’s going to take to get Lexa to stop pestering her. Whatever curiosity she’d once had about the lives of the grounders beyond their constant inclination to kill had melted away when Lexa left her on that mountain in the midst of the scents of blood and smoke.

“I want you to meet…” Lexa’s voice catches, but she steadies it. “I want you to meet my daughter, Clarke.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tell me what you think! Did I get the characterization right? Is Clarke's anger too much or not enough?  
>  I'll try to get the next chapter up within the week (the whole story should be finished by Halloween), but until then, feel free to go nuts speculating about Lexa's daughter in the comments or you can even come shout in my askbox (usuallyproperlyhydrated.tumblr.com). Or you can leave some kudos to stroke my ego. :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke's reaction to Lexa's revelation isn't what she'd hoped it would be, but Lexa's revelation isn't all it appears to be either.
> 
> (TW: Rape mention)

Lexa isn’t sure why she’s spoken those words—words she hasn’t said out loud for four years, and then only once—to Clarke, who clearly still hates her after the deal she’d made with the Mountain Men. Whatever path they’d been heading towards when they’d kissed had been cut off the moment Lexa traded the lives of her people for those of Clarke’s. If it had been foolish of her then to desire any sort of relationship with Clarke beyond the pragmatic pact of two leaders in a war, it was especially foolish now.

Clarke’s eyes widen at hearing “my daughter,” clearly taken aback by the confession—whatever tactics she’d expected from Lexa, that had clearly been nowhere near the top of the list—but then they immediately narrow and harden.

“You’re disgusting,” Clarke seethes. “You really expect me to believe that you—the commander of all the grounders, whose only purpose in life is to lead your people again and again into bloodshed and misery—were allowed to get pregnant? Forget the impracticality of riding into war while eight months pregnant! You said Costia was killed for being yours, and she wasn’t even your flesh and blood—a daughter would be the biggest bargaining chip of all. There’s no way you would allow that to happen, and neither would Anya or Gustus.”

Lexa’s stomach twists at the mention of Costia and how close but so far Clarke is from the truth of the matter. She wants to tell Clarke everything, but the words stick in her throat because she knows that they will mean nothing to the girl who is so determined to hate her.

“I should never have come here,” Lexa says. “This was a bad idea.”

“Damn right.”

Clarke settles back against the wall, her eyes burning into Lexa, who makes a deliberate show of turning her back to Clarke and walking away. She imagines Clarke plunging that spear deep into her back, and at that moment, she knows that she’d deserve it. She’d come to try to make peace with the Sky girl, but she ought to have known that there are some wounds that will never heal.

“Why?” Clarke calls as Lexa is nearly to the tree she’d been hiding in earlier.

She stops her progression and tilts her head slightly, scared that if she speaks or moves too suddenly, Clarke will change her mind and go back to ignoring and hating her.

“Why would you tell such a ridiculous lie? Is there some pit full of spikes and three-headed wolves in Polis that you want to throw me in? Killing me out here isn’t good enough for you?”

“It is not now and it has never been my intention to kill you, Clarke of the Sky People,” Lexa says evenly.

“That’s not true. You were all set to have me drawn and quartered that first time we met.”

It was a day Lexa remembers well. She had heard many things about the Sky People from her scouts and warriors, and many things about their ruthless leader, who would do anything to protect her people. Although the man Kane said that he was in charge of the people who had fallen from the sky, it was clear who the true leader was by the way she held herself and the way her people responded to her.

“That is true,” Lexa confesses. “I was angry at you and ready to make you pay for what you’d done.”

“What changed?” Clarke’s voice is flat rather than curious.

“I saw you. You were so full of life and unwilling to apologize for what you’d done because it had been necessary. And then, when you killed Finn—” Lexa doesn’t miss how Clarke flinches at the mention of his name, even now “—I knew that you understood what it meant to sacrifice. It would be a shame to let such a strong spirit be taken out of the world when there’s so much for you to do here.”

“You came all this way to tell me I have a strong spirit?” Clarke mocks.

No, Lexa had come all this way—had put off going into council with the clan leaders and making sure that all of the refugees from the mountain had been properly taken care of—because she wanted to fix things with Clarke. Maybe not to the point that she had once hoped, but possibly to the point that Clarke didn’t want to stab her every time they were within a mile of each other.

But the words are a mess in Lexa’s head and she just stands there stupidly, thinking that even a knife in the chest would be preferable to the glare that Clarke is giving her.

“What’s her name?” comes the challenge. “This supposed daughter of yours. What’s she called?”

“Thesda.”

It’s a name that’s never far from Lexa’s mind, entwined in the some of the biggest and smallest details of her life. Like “my daughter,” Lexa hasn’t spoken the name aloud in quite some time, and she is protective of it, as if speaking the name alone is enough to endanger the person it referred to.

“How old is she?”

“She recently celebrated her fourth year.”

“Who’s the father?”

“His name was Philo.”

“Did you love him?”

“He was a rapist.”

Something shifts in Clarke’s expression ever so slightly, something between pity and suspicion. She clearly isn’t prepared to give Lexa the benefit of the doubt, no matter how hard the story might tug at her heart.

“I only ever saw him a couple of times. The last of which was when I was sentencing him to death for taking advantage of a girl named Costia,” Lexa says. “It was one of the first sentences I passed as commander.”

“This Thesda isn’t your actual daughter, then,” Clarke says pointedly.

“She is not my flesh and blood, no.”

“But because she’s Costia’s daughter, she might as well be yours?”

Lexa is fully turned around now and staring at Clarke like she can convey her feelings without words. How can she explain to Clarke how it felt? To watch as life grew inside of Costia and feel both excited and terrified to know that she would be partially responsible for the child?

To know that it was partially her fault that Costia had become pregnant in the first place?

 

_“Stop fidgeting,_ heda _,” Gustus commanded. Lexa cast a doubtful glance at him. “You are coming to meet your people, not to be eaten by them.”_

_As part of her quest to unite all the clans, Lexa was making the rounds of all the villages near her home to garner their support. Gustus had sent out scouts to alert the nearest village of their coming, and Lexa was now riding towards her first destination with an entire entourage at her back. It was dark—darker than Gustus had predicted because he hadn’t been able to foresee that one of the riders would get thrown so early in the day—and Lexa was wary of the shadows._

_“You’ll be fine.” Costia gave Lexa an encouraging smile, then made a face. “Besides, if they do change their minds and decide to eat you, you would still end up triumphant. You would taste terrible, so it wouldn’t be much of a feast.”_

_They had been received well enough since Lexa had commanded her people to bring the villagers more fish and game than they were used to at that time of year. And when she’d brought out the alcohol, it seemed as though there wasn’t a single person in the village who wasn’t ready to agree to Lexa’s coalition._

_The only people who were unhappy with the conditions of the treaty were a man named Philo and some of his closest warriors. They had barely been civil when their chief had introduced them to Lexa, Gustus, and Costia, who had been presented as Lexa’s personal bodyguard. As the night wore on, Lexa became less and less strict about how much affection she would show Costia in front of their potential allies and pressed kisses into Costia’s hands more than once._

_And then later that night Philo had come for Costia who was standing guard over her commander’s tent. If it had just been him, she would have had a fighting chance—she was strong and quick. But since he brought his henchmen, Costia was gagged and taken outside the village before Gustus or Lexa noticed that she was gone._

_The worst part was that Philo made no secret of what he’d done. He’d strutted around the next morning, telling anyone who would listen about how he’d bested the commander by taking her lover. In moments, Lexa’s warriors had him bound and standing trial._

_“Philo_ comTrikru _, you are sentenced to death by dismemberment for the crime of—”_

_Lexa could hardly get the words out. Philo was kneeling defiantly before her throne, his jaw jutting and unrepentant, but all she could see was Costia shaking and crying in her tent._

_Gustus cleared his throat quietly. They had discussed what had to be done before her warriors had brought Philo in. She had killed men in battle before, but never had she ordered the execution of one. It would take a different kind of strength, Gustus told her, to look a man in the eye and take his life from him with words alone._

_Looking into Philo’s sneering green eyes, though, Lexa didn’t feel strong. She felt angry._

_“For the crime of forcing yourself on another person,” Lexa finished. “Your sentence will be carried out at once, and to prevent you from having any last words or pleading with your executioners, your tongue will be cut out.”_

 

“Lexa?” Clarke’s voice is softer now, less aggressive. Perhaps she has seen the memories that flitted over Lexa’s heart.

“I should go,” Lexa says, fighting the urge to rub her eyes. “I’m wasting your time. I’ll come find you and bring you blankets.”

“Did Costia decide to keep the baby?” Clarke asks, as if Lexa hadn’t spoken. “Even though…”

_“You have a choice, Costia,” Lexa said softly. Costia had been throwing up every single morning of Lexa’s coalition trail and finally Tomas had confirmed what they had all suspected. “I know that the child inside of you is not there by your will, but now that the rapist is gone, it belongs entirely to you.”_

_It had taken Costia nearly a month after that to decide, and Lexa never pressed her, although she’d wanted to. Despite the belief of the_ trikru _that if the rapist was killed and barred from a proper funeral, all of his influence in the child was erased, Lexa felt nervous about Philo’s child being inside Costia._

_Costia, though, didn’t see it that way. The only way she could get beyond what had happened to her was to believe that all of Philo’s very essence had been scrubbed from existence, and that included the rapidly-growing child inside her. She explained that if nothing happened between then and the delivery, she would be willing to raise it._

_“I won’t be able to fight for nine months,” Costia said as they laid together on Lexa’s bed, hands entwined. “I won’t be able to protect you.”_

_“I’ve seen you fight off attackers while you had a broken leg. A baby will be nothing.”_

_“Is this your way of saying that you won’t accept my resignation?” Costia teased._

_“You’re never allowed to leave me,” Lexa murmured, kissing the top of her head. “And no, I won’t let you fight for me while you’re carrying a child.”_

_"Our child." Costia placed Lexa's hand on her abdomen._

_"Our child."_

 

“It was a difficult decision, but yes.”

“But Costia was killed. Why would the Queen of the Ice Nation kill her and not your baby?”

The very idea of Queen Nia getting her hands on Thesda made Lexa curl her hands into fists. If things hadn’t transpired the way they had, there was a very real possibility that Thesda would have met the same fate as her mother.

“I’m sorry,” Clarke says hurriedly. “It’s none of my business. I just thought…”

“No, I want to tell you about them,” Lexa replies.

And she does. She wants—no, she needs Clarke to know about it, about all of it. She needs Clarke to know that she is more than just the monster who left her to the mercy of Mount Weather. But the sun is burning off the night’s mist and Clarke hasn’t eaten or slept properly for an entire day.

Costia and Thesda can wait, both safe in their own ways.

“After you’ve slept,” she tells Clarke.

“But—”

“And you have to eat, too.”

Lexa tosses her food pack to Clarke, still not having closed the several-yard gap between them. Although Clarke has softened considerably since their first face-to-face encounter where she’d pressed a knife to Lexa’s throat, she is still wary of the gift.

“May I?”

Lexa takes a hesitant step forward, and Clarke nods slightly. Clarke takes out a handful of random berries, nuts, and jerky and gives them to Lexa, who puts them into her mouth without any preamble. When she opens her mouth to prove that she’s swallowed them all, Clarke nods and tears at a piece of jerky. Her eyes close in satisfaction and Lexa thinks that it’s been far too long since Clarke has had a substantial meal.

Once they get to Polis, that will change.

A lot of things will change, Lexa hopes.

“Hey…”

Lexa knows what Clarke needs before she even says anything. She’s seen the way Clarke’s been eying her bow and other weapons, and it’s clear that she’s uneasy with letting Lexa be fully-armed while she sleeps. So wordlessly Lexa takes off all of her weaponry and puts it in the middle of the space between them.

“If anything comes, though—” Lexa begins.

She hasn’t kept even a single knife and the vulnerability is uncomfortable. Right now, though, Clarke’s peace of mind comes first.

She owes Clarke that much anyway.

“Wake me up, okay?” Clarke asks sleepily. She gives a large yawn. “We’ll take them together.”

Clarke curls up against the wall and is breathing deeply within minutes.

Lexa situates herself against a nearby tree and thinks about just how much she’s going to tell Clarke about what happened with Thesda.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thoughts? Let me know! Leave a comment! Leave kudos!  
> Also, this is becoming waaaaaay longer than I originally planned. I'd planned on four chapters, but it looks like possibly five or six now. They just have a lot to work through, you know?


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke wrestles with what to do about Lexa and ultimately arrives at a decision.

Clarke wakes up the same way she’s woken up for the past week—breathing heavily and completely terrified. Her nightmares stay imprinted on her mind, no matter how much she looks at her surroundings and tells her brain that they are no longer in that bunker, surrounded by those people. In her dreams, they aren’t quite dead yet and beg her for mercy in rattling, hoarse voices.

_“Save us, Outsider_ , _” a small boy had cried, tears mingling with the blood and pus. “Please save us.”_

But now that Clarke is awake, she knows that it was a dream, a concoction created by the chemicals in her brain to try to process the trauma. To break it down into small pieces and absorb it, like a disgusting but semi-healthy meal.

It isn’t working.

The nightmares just make it worse.

Clarke’s eyes flit around the small clearing and land on Lexa, who has nodded off against a tree. In the early afternoon’s gentle lighting, Lexa looks almost small. Without all that armor and war paint, she could be just another grounder girl. In sleep she looks younger, less troubled, like she doesn’t have the weight of an entire race weighing on her.

Clarke sees almost every citizen of Mount Weather in her nightmares, standing there silently and accusing her or crying out in pain. The citizens of Tondc also make appearances, shrieking as they try to put out the flames that consume them with buckets of more fire. Sometimes she sees Finn or Wells or Charlotte or her father, although those sorts of dreams are becoming more and more rare.

Does Lexa dream about the people she’s let down? Do Gustus and Costia come to her nightly to remind her that no matter what she’s done—no matter how many practical choices she’s thought she’s made—it’s not enough?

It’s never enough.

Lexa stirs and cracks an eye open, temporarily disoriented to see Clarke staring at her so intently. She scrabbles backwards, her hand automatically flying to where her sword usually rests before she remembers that Clarke made her disarm before going to sleep.

“Clarke,” she croaks groggily. “How did you sleep?”

“Terribly. You?”

A hint of a smile crosses Lexa’s lips.

“Terribly. Would you like something to eat?”

They sit several feet apart, munching on whatever Lexa has in her pack, and Clarke wonders how long Lexa’s patience is going to last. The commander is right—winter will be upon them soon, and Clarke knows she won’t be able to last without berries or nuts to gather. She gives Lexa’s pack an experimental nudge with her foot, gauging about how much was left in it. Assuming they ate nothing else, it would be gone in a few days. They could make it stretch longer if they catch food.

No, not _they_ , Clarke scolds herself internally. She’s going to send Lexa to Polis to get her supplies and she’ll hole up for the winter somewhere, and after Lexa brings back the food and the furs, she’s never going to see her again.

The thought inexplicably makes her stomach turn, and she pushes the pack away from her body.

“Eat more,” Lexa tells her.

“I’m full.”

“Just one more handful.”

“Why do you care?” Clarke bristles.

Lexa licks her lips and for a second Clarke thinks that she’s going to repeat what she’d said to Clarke after they fought about Tondc, her eyes intense and serious—that she cared. But then Lexa appears to become interested in some birds making a racket in a nearby tree and answers in an offhand way.

“There are people—your mother, Bellamy—who would have my head if they found out that you starved to death while I could have done something.”

“So this is self-preservation?”

“Something like that, yes.”

Clarke is annoyed by this answer, and tries to think of something that will needle Lexa.

“And taking me to meet Thesda, that’s self-preservation too?”

“You don’t have to meet Thesda,” Lexa replies quickly. “Just come to Polis and we’ll get you some supplies, a few decent meals, and a good night’s sleep.”

“I don’t need help sleeping.”

“Yes you do.” Lexa rests her arms on her knees, which are propped up in front of her. Clarke notices the way her eyes flick to the mural on the wall. “All good leaders do.”

“I’m not a good leader.”

Clarke isn’t even sure if she qualifies as a leader anymore, let alone a good one. Do leaders generally leave their people? Jaha had, time after time. From what her mother had told her, he’d volunteered to leave his people for the greater good many times between the launch of the shuttle carrying the hundred and his final exodus to the City of Lights.

And Lexa had left her people, too, apparently, to come bicker with Clarke over breakfast. For all her faults, Lexa is one of the most charismatic leaders Clarke has ever met or read about. She loves her people and they love her, and they are willing to do anything they can for the each other.

Lexa shrugs, as if she knows how futile it would be to pursue this line of conversation with Clarke, and lets it die.

“You don’t have to drink the sleeping tea,” she amends. “But you will be sad if you miss the amazing food.”

Even though she’s already eaten, Clarke’s stomach grumbles at the thought of eating food more complex than nuts and berries. It seems like, except for her brief stint in Mount Weather, her life has been a collection of subpar meals, from the protein paste on the Ark to the usually-charred meat prepared by the clumsy hands of Arkers-turned-grounders. The idea of a decent meal is tempting to say the least.

“Do you propose that we go waltzing into Polis?” she asks Lexa. “You’re not exactly a low-profile sort of leader.”

“There’s a reason I’m always seen in public with war paint and armor,” Lexa tells her. “It gives me certain flexibility when it comes to slipping in and out of the city undetected. I don’t utilize it often, but it serves its purpose when I need it to.”

“And me?” Clarke gestures to her hair. “I haven’t seen many blondes among your people.”

“It will be easy enough to hide your hair when we need to, Clarke.” Lexa pauses, as if she’s just understood what Clarke said. “Does that mean you’ll come with me?”

“If I come with you to get supplies, will you leave me alone?”

“Yes.” Lexa hesitates again. “Will you let me know where you’re going to be settling for the winter?”

“No.”

“Will you at least assure me that it will be within a suitable distance of Polis?”

Clarke doesn’t actually have any idea where she’s going to hole up until spring, but she doesn’t need Lexa to know that—Lexa will undoubtedly spend an inordinate amount of time drawing up maps of acceptable caves and abandoned shelters—so she shrugs.

“Will you take something that you can signal me with if you’re in danger?”

“Why? I won’t use it.”

“Take it just in case.”

“In case I suddenly want to see your face?” Suddenly Clarke is angry. Lexa _left_ her at Mount Weather—she doesn’t get to be all protective now. “In case I get desperate and lonely and need you to come take my mind off of all the terrible things I’ve done? Are you hoping that I’ll forgive you for what you did? Are you hoping I’ll be able to give you absolution? Because there is no absolution for you. If I hadn’t found a way out of there, all of my people would be dead, and their blood would be on your hands.

“Let’s get one thing straight. I don’t forgive you, Lexa, and I’m not ever going to,” she asserts. “No amount of groveling or sucking up is going to change that.”

Lexa flinches, a subtle movement that Clarke only just catches, and it’s enough to satisfy her for now.

Clarke realizes now what she wants—she wants to see Lexa crumble, to break down and cry, to become completely emotionally vulnerable. She needs Lexa to show Clarke that she’s been devastated, just like Clarke has been.

She wants Lexa to pay for her actions at Tondc and Mount Weather not with blood, but with tears.

Once she’s seen Lexa cry, then maybe the specters from her past will finally lay to rest.

And there’s only one point that Clarke knows of that will make Lexa that vulnerable.

“Take me to Thesda,” she says.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was more exposition than action, but I promise Thesda will appear in the next chapter. And I also promise that she isn't some weird hallucination of Lexa's, like the baby was for Jaha. That shit was cray.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke is a stubborn mood-swing-ass and Lexa is bewildered. Also, they have a discussion about how sexuality was handled in the Ark versus how it's handled on the ground.

Lexa doesn’t pause for even a moment before giving a nod.

“Okay. We’ll leave right away.”

Clarke gathers up all of Lexa’s weapons while Lexa picks up the food pack. She is itching to ask for something weapon that will make her feel less naked in these woods, but forebears. It is surprising, then, when Clarke holds the smallest of the knives out without a word, handle-first. Lexa looks at Clarke with questioning eyes and only takes it when Clarke gives her a firm nod.

Before they leave the small clearing, they both stare at the mural that Clarke had made in the middle of the night. It is just as garish in the day, if not more so. The blood has turned from red to rusty brown, giving it an even more distasteful appearance. Clarke, as if she’s forgotten that she used her own blood, absently touches the cut in her arm and winces.

“You should clean that,” Lexa says.

“You mean wash the painting off the wall?” Clarke asks, looking overwhelmed by the thought.

“No, not that.” Lexa gestures to the cut. “That.”

“It’s not a big deal. I’ll be fine.”

“If you mother finds out I let you neglect basic injury care methods—”

“If my mother ever sees you again, she won’t exactly be asking you if you took care of me. She’ll be too busy trying to scratch your eyes out,” Clarke responds wryly. “But yeah, I should probably rinse this off. Is there a stream or a river somewhere nearby?”

Lexa leads Clarke away from the clearing—away from the nightmare mural, which Lexa knows will eventually be erased by the rain and snow—and to a small burbling stream where Clarke washes off the crusty blood as best she can. The water must be freezing, but Clarke grits her teeth and splashes it on her arm anyway. The cut isn’t too deep, Lexa is relieved to see, and it isn’t terribly long either. Still, it was foolish of Clarke to cut herself like that when she didn’t know if she would be able to clean it properly.

“I should probably sterilize it,” Clarke says. “Got any alcohol in that pack?”

Lexa roots through her pack and fishes out a small bottle, which she then hands to Clarke.

“This is it?”

“I try to travel with as little as possible.”

Clarke rolls her eyes and dabs a little of the clear liquid onto the cut, hissing as it hits the open flesh. She then tears off a piece of her shirt that is marginally more clean than the bandage she’d just pulled off and wraps it around her forearm.

Apparently satisfied with her work, Clarke takes a huge swig of the alcohol, draining half of the bottle, before tossing it back to Lexa.

“You said you needed it for sterilization.” Lexa frowns down at the bottle, wondering what they’re going to do if they get into any trouble later on.

“What? That was totally for medicinal purposes.” Clarke stands up and brushes the dirt off her knees. “Now, which way is Polis?”

Lexa gestures to her left, in the direction the stream is coming from.

“After you,” Clarke says with a mock bow.

They walk in silence until nightfall, breaking it only when Lexa asks Clarke if she would like fresh meat for their evening meal. Clarke says yes, but doesn’t give Lexa her bow back, so Lexa spends the next hour or so trying to peg squirrels with her knife. It’s slow going, but she does manage to get three. If nothing else, it serves as something to pass the time since talking is clearly out of the picture.

She’s surprised when Clarke volunteers to build a fire, since Clarke hasn’t bothered to build one since her self-imposed exile, and readily agrees, skinning the squirrels in the fading light. As the fading light turns into full-on darkness, though, it becomes apparent that the reason that Clarke hasn’t built any fires thus far is because she is genuinely terrible at it.

“Clarke, would you like me to—”

“I can do it,” she snaps. “I just need to concentrate.”

Lexa can’t help but think that Clarke doesn’t need concentration as much as she needs wood that isn’t damp, but she turns her attention back to skinning the squirrels, telling herself that Clarke isn’t so stubborn that she won’t ask for help if she truly needs it.

Lexa is wrong, of course.

Much later, Clarke throws the sticks she’s been rubbing together aside and scowls at Lexa. This isn’t a plea for help as much as it is a command, and Lexa makes short work of building a fire out of dry sticks she’s been gathering all day.

“Thank you,” Clarke grumbles, warming her hands over the flames as Lexa prepares spits for the squirrels.

For the sake of peace, Lexa decides against saying “you’re welcome” or acknowledging the begrudging gratitude at all. All she does is hand the first two roasted squirrels to Clarke and eats her own in silence.

As they settle down to sleep, Lexa is beginning to wonder if they’re going to have to go all the way to Polis without speaking to each other—she honestly doesn’t know if she prefers the silent treatment or Clarke’s aggressive barbs—when Clarke speaks up in the dark.

“So why didn’t the Queen of the Ice Nation take Thesda, too?”

Lexa has known that this question was coming, and she’s been bracing herself for it all day. It makes sense that Clarke would ask the minute Lexa thinks she might get some sleep.

“If you’re taking me to meet her, I might as well know what I’m getting into,” Clarke points out.

“I know.”

The truth is, Lexa has been gathering her thoughts all day and night and day, since she first told Clarke about Thesda’s existence. What she’s doing now is buying time. It’s a cowardly move, but she’s hoping that if—

“If you’re hoping I’ll fall asleep before you tell me, you can forget about it,” Clarke says baldly.

“She didn’t know about Thesda. The Queen didn’t,” Lexa says, knowing that she can’t tiptoe around it forever. “No one did.”

“Because of your status as the commander?” Clarke asks. “Or was the whole thing with Costia supposed to be hush-hush?”

“No, there was no real secrecy in our relationship. There should have been. Gustus warned me time after time to be more careful about who knew about Costia and me, but I was too young and too headstrong to listen.”

“So if you were so transparent, why didn’t the Queen know about Thesda?”

“Because Thesda was born with severe birth defects, and we did what we would have done with any other child born under the same circumstances—we cast her out.”

 

_The days leading up to the birth of their child had been nerve-wracking to say the least. Costia kept insisting that nothing was wrong, but she would make pained expressions when she thought that Lexa wasn’t watching. When her water finally broke, Lexa sprinted to the healer and all but dragged him back to their tent._

_Half a day later, Thesda was born._

_Lexa had seen newborn children a handful of times before then—squalling, bruised, and bloodied little creatures—but Thesda was extra unappealing because of the gaping sores all along her arms and legs._

_“That’s that, isn’t it?” Costia had said above the wailing of the baby, looking exhausted and disappointed. “I’m sorry,_ zanj. _”_

_Lexa had nodded and looked back at the ugly red thing in her arms, getting its fluids all over her. All those months, all of the little songs Lexa and Costia had sung to their unborn child, all those dreams, everything was completely shattered._

_“That’s that,” Lexa repeated._

_But at that moment, the child stopped crying and squinted up into her face. Her eyes were large and black, just like her mother’s, and Lexa was mesmerized by the sight. It wasn’t a smile, exactly, but Lexa’s voice seemed to soothe little Thesda—perhaps she recognized it from months and months of nighttime whisperings and murmured promises—and in that moment, Lexa’s heart seemed to crack._

 

“Hold on, you _cast her out_?” Clarke repeats. “She was just a baby! She was your flesh and blood! Well, okay, not your flesh and blood, but she definitely belonged to Costia. I can’t believe you’d just toss her out like that!”

“She was already the child of a rapist, Clarke,” Lexa reminds her. “And we have trouble enough surviving without children who cannot pull their own weight.”

“Yeah, but—” Clarke pushes herself up onto one arm so she can see Lexa through the dying flames. “Wait, you didn’t actually leave her out to die. You can’t have. Otherwise you’d be luring me to Polis on false pretenses. Lexa, I swear—”

“I’m not luring you to Polis on false pretenses,” Lexa promises. “Thesda did not die that day. There was a man I knew who would take Thesda in.”

 

_Lexa had told Gustus that she had to take Thesda out into the woods alone, that she needed to be strong. Gustus had clasped her shoulder and allowed her the space she requested. Once she was certain that she hadn’t been followed, Lexa quickly fed the baby enough milk to keep it quiet for a while. After that, it had been easy enough to tell Costia and Gustus that she needed time to herself. There was no guarantee that Thesda could be healed, and if that was the case, she didn't want Costia to get her hopes up. She rode hard and fast to Polis to meet with Adelfi._

_Adelfi had been a healer in her home village before blindness had beset him. She had been small at the time, but her father had taken Lexa with him when he took the healer to a secret place in the oldest ruins of the city. There Adelfi was taken in by people Lexa’s father called_ elevs _. They were people who were convinced that the best way for their kind to grow and develop was through healing and learning, not warfare. Lexa wasn’t sure about their life philosophies, but she knew that they didn’t believe that children born with defects were a stain on the bloodline, so she took Thesda to them._

_When Lexa asked for Adelfi, he had remembered her, but hadn’t realized that she was the new_ heda _. He’d run his brown fingers along the baby’s arms and legs with a frown._

_“I don’t know if I can save her,” he said._

_“Will you try?”_

_“Yes, of course. Come back in a month and I will know for certain whether or not she will make it.”_

_Of course, a month later they had had a brief skirmish with the Mountain Men and the Boat people had become skittish about joining the coalition and then one month had turned into three and by then the Queen of the Ice Nation had taken Costia and sent her head back to Lexa. At that point, Lexa didn’t care about Thesda or her people. She just wanted revenge on the Queen and it had taken Gustus quite some time to talk her down._

_In the end it was grief that had taken Lexa back to the habitation of the_ elevs _to see if what was left of Costia had lived or died, nearly a year after Costia had been taken by the Queen of the Ice Nation. And there, toddling towards her in an open courtyard, had been a scrappy little thing with Costia’s big black eyes and curly brown hair. The small girl had seemed wary of the stranger at first, but recognized Lexa’s voice right away._

 

“And?” Clarke presses. “Did he?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Because you’re the commander?”

“Because he owed me a favor.”

“So does Thesda know who she is? Does she know who you are?”

“No,” Lexa says simply. “She knows me as her _matant_ , her aunt. The other children she’s being raised with don’t know me either, so there’s no chance of her being exploited for her connection to me.”

“So what happens when she’s old enough to start training as a warrior?” Clarke asks. “Will you make her your second?”

“No. She’s going to be a scholar like the people who raised her.”

“A scholar?”

Lexa is sure that she used the correct English word, but she strains her memory anyway to find another way to say it.

“Someone who reads a lot and teaches what they read to other people.”

“I know the word, I just didn’t think that you grounders had any among you.”

“We used to. They preserved our language and the English language even when there were many wars. They fell out of favor long before I was born, and they only exist on the fringes of our society now.”

The flames of the fire have completely burned out by now and Lexa can see Clarke pulling her blanket tighter around her shoulders. She is undoubtedly thinking that Lexa’s society is a fallen, savage one that isn’t worth saving. For all Lexa knows, Clarke is on the cusp of packing up Lexa’s foods and weapons and leaving right then and there.

“What would have happened if Thesda hadn’t been… What would have happened if you hadn’t had to give her away?” Clarke asks. “Would you and Costia both have been recognized as her parents? Or would Costia be her actual mother and you would have just been sort of there?”

“There’s a ceremony that we were planning to hold,” Lexa says, not sure why Clarke is taking this direction in the conversation. “One in which we would both pledge to take care of Thesda until she was old enough to make her own path.” It seems that Clarke’s curiosity is contagious because Lexa asks a question of her own. “How would something like that have been handled on your ship?

“I’m not sure.” Clarke rolls over onto her back and stares at the stars through the treetops. “The population was so carefully restricted that the idea of two people of the same gender raising a child never really came up.”

“Were such relationships forbidden?”

“Not forbidden exactly, no. Just… They weren’t really an option. You wouldn’t be floated for having sex with someone with the same parts as you, but no one really wanted their kid to be different either.”

“What do you mean?”

“Couples were only allowed to have one kid, period. So if you had a son and he liked other boys, that’s kind of the end of your line. And since carrying on the human race was the whole purpose of us being up there in the first place, no one really took same-gender relationships seriously. Every once in a while you’d hear about a couple who’d moved in together, but the majority of people chose to pursue relationships with more offspring-oriented ends.”

“And you?” Lexa tries to speak offhandedly, but her interest in Clarke’s thoughts on romantic partners is laughably obvious.

“I didn’t think I’d make it to my eighteenth birthday,” Clarke replies shortly, drawing a shroud over what had previously been a candid conversation. “I didn’t really think about it.”

“But when you came back to Earth, you must have had some ideas."

“Well, we were kind of busy with not getting killed by you lot or harvested by the Mountain Men. I wasn’t exactly thinking about the long game.”

“I understand,” Lexa says quietly.

“No you don’t.” Clarke turns over on her side, away from Lexa. “How long until we reach Polis?”

“It’s only a few hours from here.”

“Good.”

And with that, the conversation is over. Lexa curses herself for pushing Clarke to talk about romantic relationships, and as penance she builds up the fire enough to keep Clarke’s shivering shoulders still for the rest of the night.

She knows that there will never be anything of a romantic nature between her and Clarke of the Sky people.

The sooner she accepts that the better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If Lexa wasn't such a withholding stoic, this story would be a lot shorter. As it is, she has to tell the story in pieces, and Clarke only gets to know the bare bones of what actually happened.  
> Thesda will actually make an appearance in chapter six, I promise.  
> Let me know what you think so far!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke and Thesda meet and Lexa gets a rude awakening

“We need to do something about your hair,” Lexa says, eying Clarke’s dirty hair critically.

“Do I need to wash it so I’ll be presentable?” Clarke returns irritably.

“No, but the _elevs_ are always aware of the events that transpire among our people. There’s not a chance that they haven’t heard about the blonde leader of the Sky People.”

“What are _elevs_?” Clarke asks, not bothering to remind Lexa for the umpteenth time that she isn’t the leader of the Arkers.

“They’re scholars, historians for our people,” says Lexa. She isn’t looking at Clarke anymore. Rather, she’s removing her headscarf from her pack and surveying it. “The place where they live used to be a school before the bombs dropped. While the rest of my people saw survival as the paramount priority, the _elevs_ thought that there was no point in continuing as a race if we didn’t have a record of where we came from. While the rest of us were fighting each other for resources, they found a way to become self-sustaining so they could spend most of their time gathering information.”

“Self-sustaining? Like Mount Weather?”

“More or less."

"And they take in orphans?"

"Sometimes. They take the children born with defects and sometimes they will take regular orphans as well. Put this on.”

Lexa hands Clarke the headscarf and Clarke fumbles with it for a few minutes, trying to figure out the best way to wrap it so her hair will be hidden. Lexa watches the process wordlessly, not offering any suggestions, probably because she knows that Clarke will snap at her.

“Not too bad,” Lexa says. “Your eyebrows are still too light. And you’ve got some strands sticking out…”

Absently Lexa reaches up to tuck them into the scarf and Clarke flinches away. She knows that Lexa would never actually strike her, but she wasn’t expecting the movement.

“Sorry. I shouldn’t have…” Lexa takes a breath. “I’ll let you do it.”

“My eyebrows aren’t that light,” Clarke says as she turns to the side and finishes putting her hair away. “Especially since I’ve been living in the dirt for a week. If they’re able to see my face at all, it’ll be a miracle.”

“Okay. You’ll need a new name too.”

“Raven,” Clarke says without even thinking about it.

Lexa gives her an inscrutable look, then shakes her head.

“They’ll have heard about the Sky girl mechanic and most of the other Sky People. Pick another one.”

“Thalia,” Clarke says.

“Thalia?”

Lexa waits for an explanation, but Clarke isn’t going to give it to her. Thalia was the name of her cellmate on the Ark before she got put into solitary. Thalia had told Clarke silly stories when Clarke would wake up crying in the middle of the night. When Thalia’s eighteenth birthday came and she was going to get floated, Clarke had assaulted the guards who came to take her.

“Thalia,” says Lexa again. “That will do.”

“What’s your name?”

“I’m simply Thesda’s _matant_. It’s imperative that you never use my name. Ever.” Lexa isn’t looking at Clarke when she says that—she’s stashing all of her weapons but her knife under some rocks—but the intensity is still there.

“Anything else?”

“Don’t speak until we get to the building.”

“Fine.”

“And we need to get birds on the way there, so keep your eyes open.”

“Birds?” says Clarke, following Lexa through the underbrush.

“We need to pretend to be fowl merchants in order to pass through Polis undetected.”

“Are we going through Polis?” Clarke asks. “That seems kind of risky, doesn’t it? What if you run into Indra or someone else who knows what you look like without war paint?”

“We’re going through the outskirts, but we’ll still need something that will help us blend in.”

“And birds are going to do that?”

Lexa doesn’t answer, only throws her knife at something that Clarke can’t see. She picks up the dead pheasant-like creature and holds it by its feet as they continue on their way.

Clarke doesn’t point out that it’s going to take more than a couple of dead birds to convince people that Lexa is just one of the locals. However, as they approach what Clarke assumes to be Polis, Lexa begins crying out in a low voice in Trigedasleng. What few people are out and about on a morning like this barely even glance at the pair as they make their way through the overgrown streets. The buildings are few and far between, but the space in between them is filled with makeshift shacks made out of everything from corrugated iron siding to enormous tree trunks.

Honestly it looks like a bigger, dirtier version of Tondc and Clarke is less than impressed. Although she wants to ask Lexa if this is really the capital of their world, she stays quiet and holds onto her questions until she’s finally allowed to speak again.

Lexa’s path takes them away from the huts and into a more wooded territory, dropping her act as the boisterous, vocal bird seller. Just as Clarke is wondering if the _elevs_ have any sort of security measures to keep intruders out, there is a rustle in the trees somewhere to her right. Lexa freezes and indicates to Clarke that she should do the same.

There is more rustling all around them now, and Clarke clutches her spear nervously.

“ _Hod op! Ste matant ain!_ ”

There are disappointed groans and a dozen or so grounder children make themselves visible to Clarke and Lexa. They range from perhaps twelve to four and they’re not dressed like any grounders Clarke has ever seen. They’re cleaner than any grounders Clarke’s ever seen, that’s for sure, and they’re wearing simple tunics and pants. Their clothes remind Clarke of pictures of monks she’d seen in books.

“ _Matant!_ ”

A little girl with tight, wiry brown curls and a bright smile comes galloping towards them at full tilt. She throws herself around Lexa’s legs and begins speaking at breakneck speed in Trigedasleng. Clarke can tell that Lexa is trying not to grin, but an unabashed, genuine smile spreads over her face anyway. She kneels down and hugs Thesda properly, and it is then that Clarke realizes that Thesda only has one hand and has pink, scarred skin all up her arms.

The other children are curious about the arrival of their friend’s aunt, but ultimately start getting restless. One of the older girls says something to her comrades and they bid farewell to Thesda and melt back into the brush.

“Can you show my friend Thalia how well you can speak English?” Lexa asks, standing up.

“Hello my name is Thesda, and it’s very nice to meet you,” she says, offering her left hand to Clarke to shake. “ _Matant_ , you still haven’t answered any of my questions!”

“That’s because you asked so many, _zanj_. I’ll answer them in time, but first you must tell me—why are you and your friends outside of the enclosure?” Lexa’s smile has faded somewhat. “Is there an _elev_ out here with you?”

“We don’t need an _elev_ because Riva is almost one. We’re playing _skaikru_ and we can’t do that inside. Can I go finish playing? I’m supposed to be Clarke and we’re going to attack the mountain.”

Clarke feels as though she’s been punched in the gut. Lexa shoots her a worried glance.

“Don’t you want to see the gifts I brought you?” Lexa asks.

“ _Sha_!” Thesda is practically bouncing up and down.

“We have to go find Adelfi first and let him know that we’re here.”

Lexa gently takes Thesda’s hand and they begin walking towards a building in the distance. Between them and their destination, however, there is a big wall made out of rusted steel and cement looming over their heads. A couple of armed guards stand in front of a gate and only let them pass when Thesda chatters at them in Trigedasleng.

The building itself looks as though it’s made of brick and there is a crumbling round white tower on the top. There are gaping holes in the brickwork, but they have been covered with other materials. It looks as though the _elevs_ have done a decent job in keeping their home livable.

Thesda leads them around the back of the main building to a smaller one. Inside, a handful of adults in the same clothes as the children are busy at work preparing supplies for the winter. She takes them to the oldest-looking one, a man with brown skin and severe cataracts, who is sitting in the corner working on a quilt.

“Adelfi! _Ste matant ain_!” Thesda proclaims proudly and the man stops his stitching.

He greets Lexa in their native tongue and she quickly replies. She asks him a question and he frowns, the skin between his eyes wrinkling even further.

“Thesda, can you show Thalia the library?” Lexa asks, her eyes not leaving Adelfi.

“But what about my gifts?”

 “I promise I’ll come find you when I’m done here.”

“Okay.” Thesda shrugs and pulls on Clarke’s hands. “It’s this way.”

Clarke isn’t sure what Lexa needs to talk with Adelfi about, but she has a feeling it has something to do with the fact that Thesda and the other little acolytes were playing outside of the wall.

They walk together outside of the storage building and back towards the building with the dome. Inside the halls are fairly bare, as though decoration isn’t on the _elevs_ ’ list of priorities.

“Are you a bird seller too?” Thesda asks, her voice echoing in the empty hallway. “Is that how you know _matant_?”

“Yes,” says Clarke because she hadn’t really thought of a backstory for how they’d met.

“Have you met any _skaikru_?” Thesda’s eyes are wide.

“No.”

“That’s too bad. I want to meet someone who fell from the sky.”

“Why?” Clarke wonders what Thesda has heard from the adults.

“Because they’re from _space_! I want to ask how they breathed and what kind of food they ate and if they had any pets. Adelfi wants to meet a Sky Person, too. He says that we need to know what they were doing in their spaceship.”

“I don’t think there are going to be any Sky People here anytime soon,” Clarke says, wanting to steer the conversation anywhere else. “Are we close to the library?”

“Yes it’s just up here.”

Despite herself, Clarke is actually very curious to see how the grounders keep their library. On the Ark, almost all of their writing was done electronically. The books that the original Arkers had brought on board were kept under lock and key in a humidity- and light-controlled room.  The grounders didn’t have that kind of technology, so how would they keep their precious records from rotting away?

When Thesda led Clarke through the double doors, she literally gasps at how many shelves filled with books there are. There are rows and rows of them, going as far as she can see. Clarke steps closer to the nearest bookshelf and puts a hand out to touch the spines of the books.

“You can touch them,” Thesda says, putting her own little hand on one close to the ground. “See? It doesn’t hurt them.”

Clarke pulls out a tome that is titled “Novel Definitions” and cracks it open gingerly. It appears to be dated from roughly two hundred years ago, Clarke marvels as she traces her fingers over the title page.

“How are they organized?” she asks.

Thesda shrugs.

“These are the boring books. Let me show you where the fun ones are!”

Clarke allows herself to be led even further into the maze, her eyes never quite leaving the scores and scores of books. Thesda stops in front of a short shelf filled with small, thin books like Clarke has never seen before. They’re all brightly colored and have illustrated pictures on the front.

“What are these?”

“They’re books for children!” Thesda says happily, pulling one into her lap. “Do you want me to read this to you?”

“There are books for children?”

On the Ark, the only books the original refugees had brought were serious literature—Shakespeare and Dostoyevsky and Bharavi. Anything less than the highest of highbrow literature had been left on the earth to molder. They told their children stories, but they had all been oral.

“Of course! I’ll read it for you.” Thesda reads the title of the book, “Where the Wild Things Are,” and then opens to the first page. Thesda has clearly heard the story many times because she doesn’t appear to be reading so much as she appears to be telling about what’s going on in the pictures based on previous readings of the story. She gets to a part near the middle and stops, frowning at the page like it’s going to give her the answer.

“I know that word,” she says, pointing to “Max.” “But I can’t remember what happens next.”

“I can read it if you like,” Clarke volunteers.

“You can read English?” Thesda cocks her head. “I thought you were a bird seller!”

“I am,” Clarke says, cursing herself for being so stupid. Lexa had told her that only the warriors could speak English, and they couldn’t read or write it very well. _Elevs_ could obviously read, speak, and write it, but there was no way a regular grounder could have read the book.

“Then how do you know how to read English? Were you raised by _elevs_ too?” Before Clarke can answer, Thesda continues. “Sometimes people who grow up with _elevs_ don’t want to read or write all the time so they do other things. One boy I knew went away and became a warrior! Is that what happened to you?”

Clarke is saved at that moment by Lexa’s appearance through the shelves of books. The commander’s face brightens when she sees Thesda and Clarke sitting on the ground next to each other, but Clarke can still tell that the meeting with Adelfi hadn’t gone well.

“Are you ready for your presents?” Lexa asks, sitting down next to them.

“ _Sha_!”

Lexa pulls a little wooden owl out of her pack and hands it to Thesda, who takes it and enthusiastically exclaims about how pretty it is. Following the owl is a whole menagerie of other animals and Clarke is amazed that Lexa fit all of them into her small pack. Thesda immediately puts them on the ground and begins playing with them.

“ _Hod op_ ,” Lexa says, smiling. “There’s one more.”

She hands Thesda a gorgeously carved wooden pen with a metal nib and a tiny inkwell. Thesda is clearly less excited about the writing utensils than she is about the animals, but she throws her arms around Lexa in thanks anyway.

“One day you’ll be writing the history of our people,” Lexa says. “You might as well start practicing now.”

“I want to be a gathering _elev_ ,” Thesda declares.

It’s a far cry from being a historian, but Clarke doesn’t think it quite warrants the strained look on Lexa’s face.

“Are those the _elevs_ who grow and harvest the food?” she asks Thesda.

“No, they’re the ones who go out and watch what’s happening! Like Riva’s mother, who saw everything that happened between the _skaikru_ and the _trikru_. They go out and see what’s happening and then they come back here and other people write it down and other people teach us about it.” Thesda taps the owl and the wolf together thoughtfully. “Or I want to be a warrior like our _heda_.”

“You’re not going to be a warrior,” Lexa says immediately.

“I know I’m not going to be the _heda_ ,” Thesda says reasonably, “but I could help her! I could help her get her horse and throw spears at people who attack us and—”

“You’re not going to be a warrior,” Lexa repeats. She’s using her _heda_ voice, the one that brooks no argument from men three times the little girl’s size.

“She always says that!” Thesda says to Clarke, scowling.

“Being a warrior isn’t all that fun,” Clarke says, and Thesda looks entirely betrayed.

“Why don’t we show Thalia where we’re going to be sleeping tonight?” Lexa asks.

“Okay.”

Thesda gets up, still unhappy, and takes them back through the maze of bookshelves and through the doors. She is sullen for a while, but the longer they walk, the more she seems to forget about what had happened and begins to play with her animals again.

She takes them to another building and there are shouts that announce that all of her friends have come in from outside. Their words jumble over one another as they fight to be heard and Thesda shows them what her _matant_ has brought and when she looks up at Lexa to get permission to stay with her friends, she gets a nod.

“I know where we’re going,” Lexa says and takes Clarke up a flight of precarious stairs.

The building is exclusively used for sleeping, it seems, because every room they pass has beds in it. Clarke peers through the open doors to see that the _elevs_ ’ rooms are just as neat and bare as the rest of the building. There are clothes stacked on the floor and bedclothes, but not much else. As they get further on, it becomes apparent that this is where the children sleep because the rooms have trinkets and other knickknacks on the windowsills.

The very last room in the hallway is even barer than the ones belonging to the adults, and it is here that Lexa gestures to Clarke to go inside. There are two beds on opposite sides of the small room and a rickety chair standing in front of what used to be a closet.

Clarke hasn’t slept on a bed in too long, so the first thing she does is throw herself onto the relatively soft mattress. The blankets are well-worn and unattractive, but she doesn’t care at all as her body sinks into the bed. She closes her eyes and for a moment she thinks that she might fall asleep then and there, even though it’s barely noon.

She opens one of her eyes to see what Lexa’s doing and is surprised to see that Lexa is sitting on the chair and holding her head in her hands. She had been so happy to see Thesda and so unlike her usual self earlier that Clarke had been sure that the happiness would last. Instead, there is a weight to the way Lexa is sitting and her breathing is shaky.

Clarke closes her eyes and tells herself that she doesn’t care about Lexa’s emotional state. After what she’d done at Mount Weather, Lexa deserved all the emotional pain in the world.

And yet…

“Hey.” Clarke sits up. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Clarke.”

Clarke’s eyes flit to the door to make sure that no one is listening and then she gets up and shuts it. She hovers in the doorway, not sure if she should go back to her bed or if she should go stand by Lexa.

She opts to sit on her own bed.

“What did Adelfi say?” she asks.

Lexa lets out a barking laugh.

“He says that letting the children play outside the gate helps him and the others find out which ones will do best as gathering _elevs_.”

“Can’t you tell him to make an exception for Thesda? You don’t want her to be a gathering _elev_.”

“It doesn’t matter what I want, Clarke. He said that he appreciates my concern, but how he raises the children is none of my business.” Lexa takes a deep breath, fighting to keep her emotions under control but there are suspicious glimmers in the corners of her eyes. “I can’t protect her.”

“You don’t need to protect her,” Clarke says. “That was the whole point of bringing her here, wasn’t it? So that you could have other people keep her safe and so no one would find out your connection with her.”

“But they aren’t keeping her safe!” Lexa erupts. “They’re letting her go outside where any wandering miscreant could hurt her! And they’re thinking of letting her go out and survey battles and other goings on in the world! There are thousands of ways to die out in that world, Clarke, and Thesda already has the odds stacked against her.”

Clarke says nothing and Lexa clenches her fists.

“I can control thousands of warriors and I can foster peace between the clans and with one word I can sentence someone to imprisonment or execution.” Her words are coming faster and faster as she gets more and more upset. “I can do all of those things, but I can’t keep one small girl safe.”

“Lexa, it’s not—”

“She’s the last person I can care for, Clarke,” says Lexa, now sounding weary. “If I can’t protect her, I won’t have anyone to—”

She stands up suddenly and shoulders her pack.

“I have to leave,” she says. “I have a council meeting I need to attend. I spoke with Adelfi and you’re welcome to stay here for the winter. If you don’t want to do that, he’ll be more than happy to give you supplies.”

She’s opening the door before Clarke can even blink.

 

“May we meet again.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Halloween! I 100% should have been working on my ghostwriting stuff today, but I've been so blocked on this story all week that when I sat down to write a little bit and it became a lot, I couldn't stop.
> 
> What do you think? Is Lexa going to come back? Is Clarke going to stay? What direction do you think should the story go in? Happy ending? Sad ending? Angsty ending? Something in between? Should there be kissing? (just kidding of course there will be kissing but whether it's angsty or sweet is still up in the air)
> 
> Note: I took Thalia from the novels of The 100 because I think she's a great character and poor Clarke needs all the friends she can get. The basis for the library on the Ark came from the books as well, but I expanded the bit where there weren't any children's books on it.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lexa goes back to Polis to sort some things out.

Lexa only stops to say goodbye to Thesda because she is out playing in front of the building as Lexa exits and cannot be avoided.

“Where are you going, _matant_?” Thesda asks in Trigedasleng.

“Away.”

“Already?” When Lexa inclines her head, Thesda hops on her feet a little. “Can I come with you? Not forever! Just for a little bit. I want to see you hunt birds. You don’t have to take me to Polis.”

For a moment Lexa considers it. She could take Thesda out into the forest and hunt with her for a little while, pretending that she’s just _matant_ and no one else. She imagines what it would be like to have Thesda by her side as she stalks an animal. Her daughter’s chatter might make for difficult hunting, but she knows that she wouldn’t really care. Just to wander around the woods with her would be enough for both of them.

But she knows it’s a luxury she can’t afford right now.

“No,” she says softly and it pains her how quickly Thesda’s hopeful smile dissipates into an expression of resignation.

“Okay.” Thesda rubs at the skin covering her right wrist. “When are you coming back? Soon?”

“I don’t know,” Lexa replies truthfully. “I hope so.”

“Before my next birthday?”

The fact that Thesda already thinks of Lexa’s visits in terms of years makes her gut twist further. Even though the _elevs_ are clearly taking care of her, Lexa’s the only family she has now, and she deserves more stability and certainty than Lexa showing up once a year for her birthday.

“I will be back before it snows,” Lexa promises, although she knows very well that she doesn’t know if she’ll be able to keep her word. “Will you keep an eye on Thalia for me?”

“Yes. Is she ill? She looks ill.”

“She’s not ill. She’s…”

Lexa has no idea how to explain to a four-year-old the kind of trauma Clarke has been through. The crushing weight of leading her people, the agony of making decisions that people will criticize no matter what, the nightmares that won’t end for a very long time, the feeling of isolation… It would all be difficult to explain to a fully-grown adult, much less a small child.

“She’s tired,” Lexa says at last. “She needs rest.”

“I will tell her bedtime stories,” Thesda says resolutely.

A smile tinged with sadness spreads over Lexa’s face and she scoops Thesda up in a hug. The little girl wraps her scarred arms around Lexa’s neck and lays her head on her shoulder.

“I will miss you,” she says in a tiny voice and Lexa hugs her tighter.

“I will miss you as well, _zanj_.”

“Why do you call me ‘angel’?” Thesda asks as Lexa sets her back down on the ground.

“It’s what your mother called me.” The words almost stick in Lexa’s throat and for a moment the similarity between Thesda and Costia is almost too much to bear. “I will be back, Thesda.”

“Bye, _matant_ ,” Thesda says with a wave of her hands as Lexa walks away. “I love you!”

Lexa cannot speak for fear of losing herself, but she presses her lips to her fingers and then puts them on her heart. Thesda seems delighted with the gesture and repeats it.

The journey to Polis doesn’t take too long, even with the stop she makes to retrieve her weapons. She circles along the edge of the city, just out of range of the guards that watch there, and approaches the familiar stretch of woods behind her home cautiously.

When she notices no immediate threats, Lexa calls out to the four guards who are stationed outside of her home before she can see them. Two guards jump out of a tree, one pushes herself up from the dirt, and the other materializes seemingly out of nowhere.

“ _Heda_ ,” they say in unison, falling to their knees.

She nods at them and clasps one of them on the shoulder to indicate that they can get up.

“Good watch?” she asks them in Trigedasleng.

The captain of the squad gives her a nod, then the group disperses to their separate posts. It’s nice not to have to answer to them about where she’s been or where she’s going. They would protect her all the same. She knows, though, that their runner will be dispatched to alert Indra and the others of her presence, and that the silence will not last long.

Lexa enters her home—a small building made entirely out of logs with only one room—and resists the urge to fall onto her cot to sleep the afternoon away.

There are people waiting for her. She can no longer be just Lexa or just _matant_.

She must be the _heda_.

Instead of sleeping, Lexa goes to a battered trunk and sheds her incognito outfit to trade it for an outfit compiled of her more ceremonial clothing. She picks out a top and a pair of pants that are jet black, which will make her stand out among the colored clothing of Polis, and finishes off the look with a bright red cloak.

Once that is completed, she goes over to a table and applies some war paint. It isn’t as fierce as it would be if she were riding into battle, but it is enough to make her people notice her.

Pushing all thoughts of Thesda and Clarke out of her head, Lexa strides out the front door where Annan is waiting on the steps.

“ _Heda_ ,” he says, giving a respectful bow. “There are many concerns that await your attention. Please come with me to the capitol building.”

Lexa doesn’t respond, just follows the scout through the streets of Polis. If it had been a more war-torn time, they would take the underground tunnels that connect this area of Polis to the area where Lexa’s official commander dwelling is, but as things were, there was no harm in walking through the streets.

Word travels quickly that the _heda_ is back in the city and soon enough they are mobbed by citizens wanting to speak with her or shout their gratitude or merely look at her. Annan pushes her through the throng of people, but Lexa takes a few moments to stop and clasp hands with a few of the more insistent citizens.

It continues like this all the way to the capitol building and when Lexa and Annan are about to disappear inside, someone shouts an inquiry as to the possibility of a celebration being thrown in honor of the fall of the mountain. The heavy doors close behind the commander and her scout, cutting off the noise of the crowd, and Lexa stops.

“They know?” she asks Annan.

“Of course, _heda_.”

“What did you tell them?”

“I told the clan leaders what you asked me to tell them—there is no immediate threat from either the Mountain Men or the Sky People. The people have drawn their own conclusions.” Annan raises his eyebrows slightly. “That is why you have been called to the capitol building so quickly. You must tell the clan leaders what happened.”

Lexa nods, acknowledging the inevitability of such a meeting.

“Are they gathered?” she asks.

“No, but they will be shortly.”

“Then I shall await them in the _konferans plas_.”

“Yes, _heda_.”

Annan hesitates before leaving and Lexa looks at him expectantly.

“Luna of the Boat People is already waiting there,” he says after a beat.

“Then I shall greet her there,” Lexa replies.

“She has words for you.”

“Then I shall hear them. Is that all?”

Annan takes his leave without another word. Lexa continues along the stone corridors, past the _tron plas_ where she will undoubtedly be holding an open audience in the coming day, and traces her fingers along the mural that shows the lineage of the _heda_ through time. She marches boldly into the _konferans plas_ and sees Luna sitting in the appointed seat for the leader of the Boat People.

“ _Heda_ ,” she says with a nod.

“Luna,” Lexa says, returning it. “I was told you have words for me.”

“I do indeed. What is the status of the _maunon_?”

“I will tell you when all of the others get here.” Lexa settles into her own chair and can’t help noticing the disapproving look on Luna’s face.

“And the _skaikru_?”

“What of them?”

“Are they alive? Are they dead?”

Luna’s deep voice is mild, but there is an intensity in her eyes that says that her inquiries will not be denied.

“They are not our people,” Lexa says, realizing what this is about.

Luna has always been known for her leniency. Other clans were far more ferocious in their approach to survival, but the Boat People would take in any people who needed a new place to live. No matter what clan they had belonged to before, all immigrants were welcome under the Boat People flag. Luna had undoubtedly taken up the cause of the Sky People as of late.

“They were our allies,” Luna replies calmly. “I hoped to speak to you truly before any of the other clan leaders arrived. I do not wish to challenge you before the others, but I must make my concerns known.”

She pauses, giving Lexa the opportunity to refuse to hear her concerns. Part of Lexa wants to growl at Luna and tell her that Luna hadn’t been there at the mountain, that she should not question her commander. But Luna is far older than Lexa and had given sound advice on many occasions, despite her tendency towards pacifism. It is also respectful of Luna to air her concerns in private and not before the other leaders. And Lexa cannot lose the allegiance of the Boat People over a matter of pride. Their assets are far too valuable.

“I have always valued your words,” Lexa says. “Please, speak true.”

“What you did to the _skaikru_ was shameful. They may have been your enemies not long ago, but you chose to enter into an alliance with them and then you turned your back on them just as quickly.”

“To save the lives of our people.” Lexa keeps her expression neutral.

“When you enter into an alliance, _heda_ , they become your people as well. Before you united the clans, do you know how many of my people were slaughtered by the Valley People?” When Lexa does not give an answer, Luna presses forward. “Hundreds. And that was just during my lifetime. But since we became allies, there has been peace. There have been incidents where bad blood has prevailed, but on the whole we have become better. Stronger.

“You extended that promise to the Sky People, and then you took it away in their moment of need. And that is shameful.”

Although Lexa keeps her neck stiff, she allows Luna’s words to penetrate her heart.

“What’s done is done, Luna,” she says. “I can no more go back and change the past than I can grow feathers and fly.”

“But would you change it if you could?”

Lexa sees Clarke in her mind’s eye, huddled and starving on the forest floor, a mural of horror and pain looming behind her. She thinks of the betrayal and hatred and raw anguish she saw in Clarke’s once-brilliant eyes and thinks of their kiss and the hope behind it that had been completely extinguished.

But she also thinks of the faces of those she had been able to save through her trade. Hundreds and hundreds of her people came stumbling out of the cavernous mountain, to be reunited with their families and come to Polis to be fed and to heal.

“No.”

No sooner does Lexa speak the word than the door to the room opens and the rest of the clan leaders begin to come in, clasping Lexa’s hand in greeting, leaving Luna to do nothing more than look disappointed in her commander’s response.

Once everyone has settled into their respective places, Lexa begins her speech.

“It is true. The mountain has fallen.”

There is some murmuring among them, but overall no one seems surprised at her news. Either they had heard it from their own scouts or they had heard it from Annan. What they want to know, Lexa intuits, is how.

“After we left with our prisoners,” Lexa continues, “the Sky People continued their campaign to free their own.”

“What Sky People?” Indra asks. “They had all been taken. Except for their leader.”

Lexa inclines her head. Even after the time that had passed since the events at the mountain, she still cannot quite believe that Clarke had been able to accomplish the deed she had.

“Clarke _kom skaikru_ was one of the only ones who evaded capture. She single-handedly plunged into the heart of the mountain and exposed all of the _maunon_ to radiation, leaving them all dead.”

There is more murmuring, punctuated by soft noises of surprise. Word had gotten out that the leader of the Sky People was ruthless, but no one had expected her to do something that daring.

“So the _maunon_ are dead and the _skaikru_ live?” asks Yson, leader of the Valley People.

Lexa inclines her head once more.

“Will the _skaikru_ seek revenge?” Indra asks.

“The _skaikru_ are too weak to do anything right now,” Lexa says.

“They were weak when we left them to fight the _maunon_ alone,” Indra says. “And yet they managed to kill every single one of them.”

“The _skaikru_ will not attack us,” Lexa says.

“How can you know?” calls someone from the end of the table.

Lexa spends the next few hours convincing the clan leaders that the Sky People will not seek revenge, as well as hearing out other concerns and complaints. By the time the majority of them are mostly satisfied, Lexa calls an end to the meeting and agrees to another meeting on the morrow.

“I will sleep in the ceremonial house tonight,” Lexa tells Annan, who has been hovering by the door all this time. The house that has traditionally belonged to the _heda_ is large and impressive, fitting for a leader of her rank. Lexa finds it far too luxurious for everyday use, but she has a feeling that she will be needing an extra-soft bed and an extra-strong sleeping potion tonight.

“Yes, _heda_. But before you sleep, you should know that I have heard news.”

“News of what?”

“Sky People heading towards our city.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Enjoy what you've read? Let me know! Leave kudos or a comment or recommend it to another piece of Clexa trash.  
> Which Sky People are coming to Polis? What do they want? Do you miss Clarke yet? (I know I do. Clarke, my poor sadass...)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke settles into life in the elev enclosure with a little more difficulty than she expected.

After Lexa leaves, Clarke stares at the door of the room, unsure of what to do now. She could march out that door as well and go ask Adelfi for supplies. Lexa said that she didn’t have to stay here.

But where would she go?

Back to the woods?

The idea of going back out there—especially when there is a bed here—is repugnant to Clarke and she sits back down on her bed and stares at the wall.

She’s tired of moving, tired of running. She isn’t sure if she’ll spend the whole winter here, but for now…

Once Clarke has focused on the wall opposite her, it becomes difficult not to keep staring at it. All of the events of the past day and week wash over her, as if they happened to someone else, and miraculously she’s able to get into a mental place where she isn’t thinking about herself or anyone else.

There’s only the wall. Her eyes are looking at it, but nothing is processing, and for a moment it’s blissful.

“Thalia?”

Although Clarke registers the noise coming from the doorway, it seems distant, as if someone down the hall was shouting.

“Thalia?”

Thesda appears in front of Clarke, making her jump. She hadn’t heard Thesda’s little footsteps.

“Hey, Thesda.” Clarke’s eyes are having trouble focusing and she blinks rapidly. “What’s up?”

“Are you okay?” Thesda’s brow is furrowed in a way not unlike Lexa’s when she’s worried. Clarke thinks that she must be imagining the similarity since Thesda isn’t Lexa’s child biologically, and she shakes herself.

“Yeah, I was just thinking,” she returns. “What can I do for you?”

“It’s time to eat,” Thesda says. “Do you want to come eat with us?”

“Um…”

Neither Clarke’s brain nor her mouth is registering hunger, but her stomach must be because it growls ferociously, loud enough for Thesda to hear.

“Yeah, I guess so,” says Clarke, standing up.

“Okay! Follow me!”

Thesda tugs on Clarke’s hand and leads her down the hall, down the stairs, and to the building next door. As soon as they enter, tantalizing smells tickle Clarke’s nose and she begins to salivate.

But the closer they get to the dining area, the more sour the taste in Clarke’s mouth becomes. With every clatter of silverware and every muffled laugh, the dining hall of Mount Weather comes crashing back over her, pounding relentlessly against her brain. The scent of food starts to become overpowered by the creeping scent of blood both old and fresh. The easy conversation twists into cries for help and shrieks of pain and moans of the dying.

“Come on.”

Thesda tugs at Clarke’s hand and when Clarke looks down at her, Thesda is covered in boils and peeling flesh. The sweet smile on her face becomes a gaping hole

“Come on, Outsider,” says a voice that is both Thesda’s and not. “Come see where we’re dying. Come see what you’ve done.”

Clarke jerks away, unable to stand even one more minute of it.

“I can’t—” she stutters. “I’m not—”

She gives up on trying to give any sort of coherent excuse and sets off for her room at a dead sprint.

Once inside, Clarke slams the door and sits with her back to it to prevent anyone from following her. She puts her head between her knees and tries to calm her breathing, but it feels as though her lungs have been cast out of cement and they refuse to expand or contract.

“Stop,” she pants, begging the voices to go away. She thought that she’d left them behind in the dining hall—in Mount Weather, in the Ark—but they had followed her here too.

Clarke isn’t sure how long she sits like this, staring into the blankness of the room and willing the voices to go away with every shred of her heart and mind. It’s long enough that shadows turn into full-on darkness and soon she’s staring at the way the moon casts its light over her bed.

She stares at the bed so long that it begins to look foreign to her, an object that she’d been acquainted with her whole life suddenly appearing fresh and new.

At the thought of freshness, a calming breath slips into Clarke’s chest. Even though the noise of the dining area had been too much to handle, she realizes that it’s very quiet in her room.

It’s nice, actually. The room begins to remind Clarke of her cell on the Ark—nondescript and completely blank. Blissfully blank. When she’d first been confined in solitary, the blankness had driven Clarke mad and she’d striven to cover every inch of her cell with her drawings. It was her way of fighting back against the void.

But here, in this room, in this void… It’s nice. There’s no trace of who she is or who she was. Not a single clue except for the clothes she’s wearing.

The room is just enough to keep her separated from the elements and anything else in the woods that might try to make a claim on her life. The room doesn’t expect anything from her.

No one in the _elev_ enclosure expects anything of her. No one is coming to her with their problems, wanting her to find a solution in a war that has no true victor. She isn’t physically being kept there—she knows that if she walks out the door, no one will stop her. No one will try to tell her that what she did was right or necessary. They probably wouldn’t spare her a passing glance if she left.

The thought is incredibly freeing, almost as freeing as the blankness of the room.

Clarke stares at a crack in the otherwise well-preserved wall and revels in the nothingness.

It is glorious.

But, of course, it doesn’t last.

There is a knock on the door.

“Thalia?”

The nothingness has been encroached upon and Clarke is more than a little irritated by that.

“What, Thesda?” she says, making no move to open the door.

“Are you okay?”

Clarke doesn’t answer because she isn’t okay. She hasn’t been okay for a really long time, and she’s just now realizing just how not okay she’s been.

“Thalia? I brought you some food. Can I come in?”

It’s hard to ignore such a polite request, and the thought crosses Clarke’s mind that the real Thalia—the one who’d been floated—wouldn’t have hesitated to let Thesda in.

Clarke gets up on her knees and sits on the bed.

“The door’s open,” she calls. “You can come in.”

Thesda peers cautiously around the door, her wide dark eyes adjusting to the dimness of the room. Her face is thrown into shadows by a candle that she brings in with her.

“Is it okay if I bring a friend in?” Thesda asks. “I couldn’t carry the food myself.”

Clarke nods, although she really isn’t that hungry, and Thesda lets a tall, stocky man into the room, dressed in the same simple clothes as every other _elev_ Clarke has seen thus far. He’s got a pronounced limp and his face is covered with tattoos that Clarke has only ever seen on the grounder warriors. He’s carrying a wooden tray and sets it next to Clarke.

“I’m Bek,” he says, holding out his hand. “I’m one of Thesda’s teachers.”

She returns the handshake, her eyes still trained on the tattoos.

“I don’t look much like a teacher, do I?” Bek gives a low chuckle.

“Not really, no.”

“You don’t look much like a bird seller,” he says. “But none of us are what we once were. I’ll leave you two alone.”

And with that, he was gone.

“What did that mean?” Clarke asks Thesda. “He wasn’t raised an _elev_?”

Thesda looks at Clarke and Clarke can almost see the tiny wheels turning in her small head.

“You need to eat,” the child says at last, hopping up onto the bed next to the tray and swinging her feet.

“I’m not hungry.” At this point, it’s a reflex.

“You still need to eat so you’ll grow up big and strong!”

“I think I’m about as grown as I’m going to get.” Clarke almost cracks a smile.

“Yes, but you still need to be _strong_ ,” Thesda says with gusto. “You look very tired and very sick and you can’t get better if you don’t eat.”

“You think I look tired?”

“And sick,” Thesda adds with a nod.

Although it’s hardly flattering to be thought of as appearing tired and sick, Clarke finds Thesda’s honesty refreshing. For the first time, she looks down at the tray full of food with some interest.

“Well that’s no good, is it?”

“No.” Thesda must catch Clarke eying the tray because she tries to strike a deal. “I’ll tell you all about the _elevs_ if you eat.”

“Is that so?” Clarke can feel her lips crack as they break into a small smile. Clearly Thesda is well-acquainted with the routine of being wheedled into eating.

“I promise.”

“It’s a deal then.”

Clarke picks up a well-carved wooden spoon and pokes it into what looks like mashed potatoes. When she sticks it into her mouth, it doesn’t taste much like anything, but whether it’s from the food itself or the nothingness lurking inside her is anyone’s guess.

“What is this?” she asks as she goes for a second spoonful.

Thesda says a word in Trigedasleng and Clarke just hums, making a mental note of it. If she’s going to get by unnoticed in the _elev_ enclosure, she’s going to have to learn a decent smattering of their language fast.

“What’s your favorite food?” she asks Thesda.

“I like the onions and carrots,” she replies, pointing to a corner of the tray.

When Clarke puts that into her mouth, she is pleasantly surprised by how delicious she finds it. She finishes off the carrots and onions in no time at all and goes back to surveying the other less-familiar food in front of her.

“Are you going to ask me questions?” Thesda asks. There is the slightest hint of a pout around her full lips, as though she’s disappointed that Clarke hasn’t been making the most of their deal.

“I was! I was asking you about the food.”

“But I mean about this whole place.” Thesda waves her hand around, her feet still swinging beneath her. “I know all about everything and I want to help!”

“Okay, okay. Let’s see… Do you have to be born an _elev_ to live here?” Clarke asks.

“No.”

“Are there any families? You said your friend’s mom was a gathering _elev_ , right?”

“She is! And there are lots of families. But there are a lot of people who are here by themselves, too. Like me. There are a lot of _loswans_ , too.”

“ _Loswans_?” Clarke repeats.

“Don’t you know _any_ Trigedasleng?” Thesda asks with so much exasperation that Clarke almost laughs.

“ _Mochof,_ ” Clarke offers.

“Everyone knows how to say ‘thank you,’ even Prash and he’s only two.” Thesda is appalled. “Don’t you know anything else?”

“ _Yu gonplei ste odon_ ,” says Clarke automatically.

It is the first phrase she learned in the grounders’ tongue, and it feels as though it’s been sanded into her bones.

The mood in the room drops considerably, but Clarke puts an extra large bite of something into her mouth to try to distract Thesda from it.

It doesn’t work.

Thesda’s face falls as soon as the words are uttered and she regards Clarke sadly.

“Who died?”

Clarke swallows the tasteless food.

“A lot of people,” she states. “But it isn’t a big deal.”

She doesn’t want this little girl to have nightmares because of her. She doesn’t know how much exposure Thesda has had to death, but she knows that she doesn’t want to be the one to talk about it.

“Were they your friends?”

“Yeah.”

Whatever had been left of the blissful nothingness is burning away now, giving way to the agony that had prompted Clarke to run into the woods in the first place.

“Yeah, a lot of them were my friends.”

The onslaught of pain and memories isn’t gradual like it had been with the dining area—it is swift and brutal. The people who had helped them inside Mount Weather. The people who hadn’t helped them, who’d had no clue what their survival was going to cost the Outsiders. President Wallace, who had refused the unethical method of getting the treatment that would allow him to live on the surface. Maya… Oh god, Maya, who she’d greeted with a shard of glass to the throat but who had agreed to help them escape anyway.

Finn. Finn who she’d just started to love and who had changed so much in such a short time and who she’d had to love enough to stick that dagger into his heart.

And Wells, who hadn’t gotten to see the ocean before being killed. He’d come all this way to earth to protect her and he ended up with a knife in his throat before she’d even hugged him and thanked him for trying to spare her feelings.

And her dad.

Her dad.

He’d been her first friend, had taken her on piggyback rides all through the Ark, much to the annoyance of the guards. He’d been the one to encourage her drawing and would laugh at her terrible jokes and sometimes wrote silly things in her protein paste just to cheer her up.

“I’m sorry.”

When Clarke looks up, she sees Thesda rubbing her right wrist with her left hand, a look of complete pity on her small face.

“I didn’t mean to make you cry. I can go away now if you want.”

Clarke doesn’t even realize that she’s been crying until she swipes a hand across her face and it comes away wet.

“No, it’s okay,” Clarke says thickly. “I don’t know why I’m crying. It’s stupid...”

“No! It’s not stupid!” Thesda says with so much feeling that Clarke is momentarily stunned. “It’s okay to be sad! Last winter my best friend Dria got sick and she died and I missed her very much and I still miss her but Bek told me that it’s okay to be sad and it’s okay to miss her. It’s okay for adults to miss their friends, too. The _loswans_ are all very sad and it’s okay for them to be sad and this is a safe place for them and it’s a safe place for you, too, Thalia.”

This only makes Clarke cry harder, her shoulders shaking with her ugly, unfettered sobs. She weeps for everyone who has died and everyone who hasn’t died and wished they had. She weeps for what she thought her life would be and for what it’s become. She weeps out of sheer exhaustion, for never getting a moment to herself and for the moment she finally was able to be alone after leaving Camp Jaha and realized that she didn’t like herself, that she hates herself.

That if even she hates herself, who else is going to love her?

That the reason she left Camp Jaha was to prevent anyone from leaving her first once they’d really realized what she’d done.

The thought rips through Clarke as though she’s been struck with a blow to the head and it causes her to shake and sob some more.

“I’m sorry,” Thesda whispers underneath the tears and agonized cries. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

When Clarke’s tears have all run out, she wipes her nose and face on the rough cloth napkin from the tray. Thesda is still sitting beside her patiently and Clarke doesn’t remember when she had begun clutching Thesda’s small brown hand.

“I’m sorry,” Clarke croaks. “You didn’t need to see all this.”

“ _Matant_ said to take care of you,” Thesda says simply. “She cares about you and so do I. I like you, Thalia.”

Clarke is about to protest that Thesda doesn’t really know her, that if she did she wouldn’t think twice about leaving. But she thinks that maybe she can pretend to be Thalia. Maybe she can change herself into someone that this child can truly look up to.

“I like you, too, Thesda,” she says, giving her hand a squeeze.

“Are you done with eating? Would you like me to tell you a bedtime story?” Thesda offers.

Sleeping has never sounded so good to Clarke, so she just nods and moves the half-empty tray to the other bed.

After she’s settled under the scratchy but still comfortable blanket, Thesda drags over the chair and sets it next to the head of the bed.

“What kind of story do you want to hear?” she asks. “A war story? Something about the _heda_?”

“No,” Clarke says quickly. She feels so empty and worn out that she’s worried that any mention of Lexa will finish her. “Something else. What’s your favorite animal?”

“Ducks are my favorite.”

“Can you tell me a story about a duck?”

“Of course! And tomorrow I’ll show you where our ducks live.”

“I’d like that.” Clarke’s eyelids already feel heavy and she nestles into the mattress. “Thank you, Thesda.”

She means to thank Thesda for being there, for listening, for caring, even though it wasn’t her burden to share. She hopes that watching an adult break down like that won’t damage Thesda in any way. She’s so good, and Clarke would hate to have any part in sullying that good nature.

Thesda, as young as she is, takes the more literal interpretation.

“You’re welcome,” she says. “Now, once we had this duck who couldn’t fly…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First of all I want to thank everyone who's read this so far and stuck with it. I thought it was only going to be three chapters, but I was very wrong. Your comments and kudos and views help push me along, even when I'm feeling lazy or disheartened. <3
> 
> Secondly, what did you think? Poor Clarke has had such a rough time, I thought that the minute she'd get some time to herself, things would shatter completely. (Her experience of the numbness and the dissociating are drawn from my own experiences with both of those things, so it's a bit weird to be putting them out in the world for other people to see.)
> 
> As always, comments and kudos are appreciated and you are more than welcome to come yell in my askbox on Tumblr (usuallyproperlyhydrated).
> 
> I hope you all have a fabulous week!


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Clarke finally washes off all the grossness of the past week and Thesda is a typical four-year-old. (And Clarke finds out about the Sky People who are coming to Polis.)

Clarke allows herself to drift in the spaces between Thesda’s words and soon she is slipping through the gaps until she finds herself lying down on her bed in the Ark. Thesda’s high, youthful voice has been replaced by one that is much deeper. Clarke lets it wash over her for a few minutes, not really soaking in the words, just reveling in the feel of it.

“Clarke?”

Wells is sitting in the chair by her bed and now he is looking at her expectantly.

She doesn’t speak to him, instinctively knowing that any sounds from her mouth will make him disappear. She merely raises her eyebrows at him to let him know that she heard him, and he laughs.

“You haven’t been listening to a word I’ve said,” he reprimands. “I’ll bet you don’t even know what book I’m reading from.”

He’s right—Clarke could no more tell him what book he’d been reading to her any more than she could tell him exactly how a radio works. The words and the meanings of them were unimportant. What is truly important is that he is there, safe, even if the nagging voice in the back of her head keeps saying that it isn’t real.

“You’re never going to pass history if you don’t pay attention,” Wells says.

Clarke makes a show of rolling over on her side and facing him completely. She gives him an encouraging look and he begins reading again. As his voice wraps around her, Clarke watches his face hungrily. He’s so into what he’s reading. His emotions are so obvious.

It isn’t a memory, exactly. There were times that Wells read to her on the Ark, of course, usually when she was drawing, but the setup had never been quite like this. It’s a dream that’s so close to a memory that it makes her ache for all of the missed opportunities. For the memories that they wouldn’t ever be able to make together again.

She misses him.

Wells stops reading, seeing that his audience is distracted once more.

“Do you want me to stop?”

Clarke shakes her head emphatically.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

Clarke isn’t sure how to answer this. Right now, she’s content to just listen to him go on and on forever. In this dream, he’s safe, and so is she. Safe from the horrors that usually lurk behind her eyelids. Outside of the dream, things aren’t ideal, but they aren’t horrible either.

She settles for a noncommittal shrug.

Wells regards her critically for a moment, then begins reading again.

There is no knowing how much times has passed, but too soon Wells stands up and announces that he has to leave. Clarke sits up and fights the urge to grab his arm.

“It’s okay, Clarke,” he says. “I’ll be back.”

“I miss you,” she blurts. The words don’t cause his form to dissolve into the air, so she continues. “I miss you and I’m sorry.”

“And I miss you,” he says sadly. “But you know you’ve got stuff to do, and I do, too. I can’t stay forever.”

Clarke can’t fathom what exactly Wells is referring to for himself, but the thought of everything she has to do in the waking world is exhausting.

“You can do it,” he says, seeing the distress written across her face. “Where’s the girl who was determined to become a better chess player than me?”

“I never beat you,” Clarke replies.

“Not yet. We’ll have to play again sometime.”

And with that, Wells is out the door.

“Wells? Wells!”

The Arks is shifting around her, swirling into eddies of darkness, and Clarke puts a hand on the wall to steady herself, only for the wall to give way, leaving her to tumble tumble tumble into the emptiness and—

“Wells!” Clarke exclaims, sitting up in her bed.

She is back in her room in the _elev_ compound, bright, fierce daylight streaming through the dusty window. It’s the first time in a while that she hasn’t woken up from a nightmare. Her dream about Wells wasn’t exactly happy, but it was better than being confronted with her genocide. And it was nice to see Wells again, even if it was just in her dreams.

“Thalia?”

The man who had brought her food the night before is standing in the doorway wearing an expression of concern.

“I’m okay,” she tells him, trying to slow her breathing. The grogginess of sleep goes away in an instant when she realizes that someone important isn't present. “Where’s Thesda?”

“She’s in her lessons for the day. She asked me to let you know that she’ll be back here as soon as they’re done.”

“Have you been waiting for me to wake up?” Clarke asks.

The man—Bek, Clarke thinks—nods.

“I’m sorry.”

“Why?” he asks.

For wasting his morning. For intruding upon the safety of the whole enclosure. For not being a normal human being or being able to have a normal conversation.

“I don’t know,” Clarke replies with a sigh.

“May I sit down, Thalia?” Bek asks. When she gives her assent, he sits down on the rickety chair. “Do you know what a _loswan_ is?”

Clarke might have let some stupid details slip with Thesda, like the fact that she was able to read English, but there is no way she was going to give this man anything to connect her with Lexa or the Arkers. Rather than admit her ignorance, she shrugs.

“Who doesn’t?”

Bek frowns at her, as though she’s given him the wrong answer, and stands up and shuts the door.

“You might want to cover your hair,” he says, gesturing to the head scarf that has fallen off sometime during the night.

Clarke scrambles to retrieve it, struggling to get every inch of hair covered in as short a time as possible. When she looks back at Bek, she doesn’t see suspicion like she would have expected from a grounder.

“A _loswan_ is someone who has known the pain of war,” he says. “Sometimes they are warriors, sometimes they are civilians. But always they have been broken down to their very heart by the loss of loved ones.

“I myself am a _loswan_. You noted my markings yesterday. They do not come for free—every single one must be earned. I was a warrior for the _heda_ for all of my life, as was my love, Shon. He and I were raising a child who was to become our second when Shon went missing. Little Umbria and I went to search for him, but when we found him, it was too late. He had been turned into a _ripa_.

“He attacked us, knocking me out of the way and taking Umbria. I was too slow. I watched as he smashed Umbria’s head against a tree and then began eating his flesh.”

Bek’s voice is almost emotionless as he tells Clarke the story, not even a hint of a quaver. It’s as though the words he’s saying belong to someone else.

Clarke is reminded of how Lexa told her about Costia.

“I killed him,” Bek says simply. “While he was eating, I put an arrow through his skull. I left them both there and went back to my village, thinking that I could live my life as it once was.

“But I couldn’t. Everything in my hut—the hut that Shon and I had built together—reminded me of him, of Umbria. Of the life that we couldn’t have together. They were constantly with me, staring at me, accusing me of not doing more.”

Clarke thinks of how Finn haunted her after his death, and she nods sympathetically.

“I burned the hut down. I thought that I needed the cleansing power of fire to finally be free. My hut burned magnificently, and for a moment I thought I might find peace. The flames grew and grew until they had consumed not only my hut, but those of my kinsmen and a very large portion of our woods. A couple of people were caught in the flames and badly injured. Once they found out that it was my fault, I was imprisoned until the _heda_ came to sentence me properly.”

“Is there some sort of prison she would condemn you to?” Clarke asks, curious about the grounders’ penal system.

“No. She came to order my death.”

“Oh.”

It suddenly hits Clarke that sentencing her people to die is something that Lexa has done ever since she took command. Not only does she look her people in the eye and ask them to die for her, she looks them in the eye and sentences them to death as well. Ordering the execution of a man like Bek for extensive destruction must have been a commonplace occurrence for her.

The churning of Clarke’s stomach comes from the thought of Lexa having to face that day after day as much as it does from anxiety at Bek’s fate.

“She brought me to her tent and heard what my people had to say against me. Then she told them to leave and I was left alone with her.”

“And?”

“I was ready to die, Thalia. I knew that what I had done was punishable by death, and I did not want to live in a world without my two loves.” Bek’s voice trembles ever so slightly. “When the commander asked if I had a reason why I should not be punished, I gave no answer.”

Bek gets up now and walks to the window, absently tracing the tattoo on his face.

“She said that she had heard about Shon and Umbria and that she was sorry for my loss,” he says quietly. “That she would take me to a place where I could heal. She brought me here, and I have been here ever since.”

Clarke is quiet, unsure of what to say. His pain is still present, but it isn’t as all-encompassing as her pain feels. She thinks that she should say something, comfort him in some way.

“That is what a _loswan_ is,” Bek finishes. “Someone who has experienced great loss, to the point of losing themselves.”

“How many _loswans_ are here?” Clarke asks.

“Many. Most have been brought here by the word of the _heda_.” Bek faces Clarke, eying her scarf and nodding when he sees that it is still performing its function. “You are a _loswan_ as well, and because of that, you will be treated with respect and patience. No matter who you might have been before coming here.”

Clarke knows that he knows who she is. She couldn’t have been more obvious if she tried.

“I should go,” she says.

“Why?”

“You don’t want a…” She is about to say “Sky Person” but catches herself just in time. “You don’t want someone like me here. If the other clans find out that I’m here or if my people do… I’ll just cause trouble.”

“Did you come here with the intent to cause trouble?”

“No.”

“Then you should stay. We’re here to heal, Thalia,” Bek says simply. “And no one will make you tell them what you did in the outside world.”

“I don’t even know where to start,” Clarke says.

“Start with your body,” Bek says. “Your _keryon_ cannot begin its renewal if its home is not being cared for. You must eat and you must sleep. A fresh change of clothes might help as well.”

Clarke looks down at her clothes, which are undeniably filthy from the sweat, dirt, and blood of the last week.

“That’s probably a good idea,” she replies. “Where can I find some?”

“I will bring you new clothes.” Bek stands up to leave. “Is there anything else you require?”

“Maybe more of those carrots and onions from last night?” It’s the only food that sounds appealing to Clarke and she knows that Thesda will ask her what she’s eaten since she got up.

Bek nods and leaves Clarke to sit on the bed and think about what she’d been told about the _loswans_. When she’d first met Lexa, the commander was determined to kill Finn for what he had done to the unarmed villagers. This and many other instances—killing Gustus for betraying her—had colored Lexa in Clarke’s eyes as a leader who meted out more justice than she did mercy.

And yet the same leader who had been so casual about the lives of the citizens of Tondc also sent warriors and civilians with PTSD here to the _elev_ enclosure to recover from their experiences.

Clarke had thought that she had understood Lexa when they kissed, but she hadn’t, not really. When Lexa had turned over the Arkers in exchange for her own people, Clarke had thought that then she really knew what kind of person Lexa was.

Because she’s now seen Lexa interact with Thesda and heard about the _loswans_ from Bek, though, Clarke wonders if she’ll ever be able to really know Lexa entirely.

The thought that it might be at least worth trying flits across her mind before she dismisses it.

She’s not ready to forgive Lexa yet.

But maybe she’s ready to start thinking about it.

“Thalia!” Thesda runs into the room and slams the door behind her, breathing hard.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Clarke is immediately on high alert.

“We were—playing _pauna_ —during our meal break,” Thesda gasps, holding her right arm to her chest. “And—Avila was being the _pauna_ and he’s very fast and very scary and he chased me inside and I think I lost him on the stairs but you have to protect me!”

There is a roar from the hallway, making Thesda squeak and dart under Clarke’s bed. Moments later a boy of about eight or nine with spiky brown hair comes charging into the room, his lips drawn back, baring his teeth.

Upon seeing Clarke, he stops in his tracks and lets his arms, which had been curled to imitate claws, drop to his side. Avila murmurs an apology in Trigedasleng. Then he scuffs his feet and asks her a question, one that she doesn’t need to be fluent in his language to know. He’s clearly asking if she’s seen Thesda or knows where she’s gone.

“ _Em non ste hir_ ,” Clarke says, and he leaves the room, his cheeks pink. After a minute, she peeks under the bed. “I think he’s gone. You can come out now.”

“ _Mochof_ ,” Thesda says. “How are you doing? You slept for a very long time. I’m proud of you! Are you hungry? Should I get you something to eat?”

“Bek is bringing me food and some new clothes,” Clarke answers, plucking at her disgusting shirt. “But thank you.”

“Is he bringing you some soap as well?” Thesda wrinkles her nose. “You smell. You need to clean up.”

“Is that so?” Clarke pretends to be offended. “Why didn’t you tell me that yesterday?”

“Because you were sad! And sometimes sad people don’t like being told what to do. You didn’t like me telling you that you had to eat.”

“That’s true. I’m sorry.”

Thesda completely ignores the apology.

“You are less sad today, so I thought I could tell you that you need to get clean.” She looks up at Clarke’s face, suddenly worried. “Are you mad?”

“No, I’m not mad. I should definitely take a bath.”

Bek returns and Clarke eats before setting off to the washroom with Thesda in tow.

“I’ll stand outside the door,” Thesda says, crossing her arms sternly. “No one is allowed inside.”

When Clarke enters the washroom, it looks quite a bit like the bathrooms on the Ark. There are stalls with shower heads and Clarke spends a good few minutes poking around, looking for a bathtub, since that is primarily how she’s been getting clean since coming to the ground. When no bathtub appears, she fiddles with the handle under the shower head and is immediately doused with lukewarm water.

She peels off her clothes and stands underneath the stream, marveling at how people who live mostly in tin huts have managed to get indoor plumbing working again. If she ever goes back to Camp Jaha, she resolves to tell Raven about it and get her working on a plan to get the Ark’s showers up and running.

Once again looking like a human and not some sort of disgusting swamp monster, Clarke dries off and puts on the clothes that Bek brought for her. They’re soft and clean and the combined feeling makes Clarke want to crawl into her bed and sleep for days. She feels less like Clarke, the leader of the Sky People who is covered with both literal and metaphorical blood, and more like Thalia, the _loswan_ who is safe.

“Are you done?” Thesda hollers, her voice echoing against the tile floor and walls. “You’ve been in there forever!”

“Shouldn’t you be in your lessons?” Clarke asks as she braids her wet hair and comes out into the hallway. “You said that you were playing _pauna_ during your meal break. When does that end?”

“ _Pauna_ ends when the _pauna_ eats everyone.” Thesda is deliberately misunderstanding Clarke’s question. “He didn’t eat me, but he couldn’t find me, so he probably ate everyone else and now the game is done.”

Clarke makes a mental note to tell Thesda about the time she avoided being eaten by the flesh-eating gorilla and finds herself looking forward to Thesda’s face when she hears it.

Now, however, she feels like she should be responsible. Lexa would be pissed if she knew that Clarke was letting Thesda skip class.

So Clarke raises her eyebrows at the little girl, giving her best impression of a responsible adult. It is a look her own mother gave her when she wasn’t being exactly forthcoming, and it works just as well on Thesda as it does on Clarke. She squirms under her gaze.

“My next lesson was with Bek and he said that I should stay with you.” Thesda lets the words come out all in one breath.

There is a semi-tense moment as Clarke has to decide whether or not she’s going to believe Thesda, but it passes quickly. Thesda has no reason to lie to her, and one afternoon of missed classes won’t be the end of the world.

“I’ll blame Bek when your _matant_ wants to rake me over the coals,” Clarke says, and Thesda grins. “Now, I maybe have dreamed it, but I think you told me that you’d show me the ducks today.”

“ _Sha!_ ”

The ducks live by a pond behind the barn, which houses the other animals that belong to the _elevs_. Thesda promises Clarke that she’ll take her to see the sheep sometime, but tells her that today is all about the ducks.

Clarke, of course, has only seen ducks in books and is slightly worried that in the years since the bombs dropped they would have all mutated to have five legs or razor-sharp teeth. She lets out a sigh of relief when the ducks that Thesda shows her are perfectly normal, except for a few which Thesda tells her can glow in the dark.

The two new friends find a log to sit on and watch as the ducks mill about, quacking and pecking at each other. Thesda points out the two little ducklings that just hatched a few weeks ago.

“I’m trying to train them,” she tells Clarke.

“To do what?”

“To follow me around. Maybe to do tricks. When it gets colder, the bigger ducks are going to live in the barn and the ducklings are going to sleep in my room.”

“Do any of the _elevs_ know that?” Clarke can’t help but smile.

“No, but they don’t— _MATANT!_ ”

Thesda stops mid-sentence and goes tearing off towards the barn, where Lexa is walking towards the two of them. Lexa stops to throw Thesda over her shoulder, the little girl giggling and squealing all the while, and keeps walking. Clarke doesn’t have time to register anything other than surprise when Lexa speaks to her.

“Have you seen Thesda?” Lexa asks with feigned confusion when she reaches the pond. “She was here a moment ago.”

“I’m right here!” Thesda yells, pounding her fist and wrist on Lexa’s back.

“Maybe she went for a swim with the ducks,” Clarke suggests. “I think she said that she wanted to be a duck when she grows up.”

“I did not!”

“A duck is the only thing she will be able to be if she refuses to start taking her lessons more seriously,” Lexa says. “Perhaps she went back to her lesson where she belongs.”

“Bek said it was okay!” Thesda howls.

“Did you hear something?” Lexa asks Clarke.

“I think I did. What’s that on your shoulder? A duck?”

“I’m not a duck!”

Lexa gently lowers Thesda to the ground, the little girl’s face flushed with all of the blood that had rushed to her head.

“Oh, there you are,” she says, keeping her voice monotone. “Where did you come from?”

Thesda’s response is to growl and attack Lexa with a hug, which Lexa returns fully.

Clarke’s stomach does a flip, unable to reconcile this playful Lexa with the one who said that love is weakness. Nothing about Lexa’s manner is forced when she’s with Thesda. It’s all natural, play born out of affection.

There is, however, something bothering Lexa, and Clarke can see it in her eyes when she stands back up.

“ _Zanj_ , those ducks look hungry, don’t they? Can you go to the kitchen and see if you can find anything to feed them?”

Thesda is thrilled at the mission and is off like a shot. Before she reaches the barn, she runs back to where Clarke and Lexa are.

“You’ll be here when I get back?” she asks Lexa.

“Yes.”

Satisfied, Thesda runs away again and Lexa’s smile goes with her. The way she watches her daughter with such hungry eyes makes Clarke's heart twinge.

“You didn’t come here to feed the ducks,” Clarke says.

“No, I did not. I wanted to give you more time before coming back here.” Lexa remains standing as Clarke sits. “There are Sky People coming to Polis.”

“What?” Clarke is stunned. “Why?”

“I presume that they are coming to find you.”

“But why would they go to Polis? I didn’t even set out in that direction. They’d only come to Polis if…” It dawns on Clarke. “They think you kidnapped me.”

Lexa nods.

“How do you know?”

“I have scouts watching the camp of the _skaikru_ and they tell me that a search party has been out looking for you for the past week. Something in your trail made them think that you were taken, and the only person they can think to blame for it is me.”

“How many?”

“Four. Your mother, Bellamy, Octavia, and the one they call Monty.”

“Monty? Really?”

Clarke understands why her mother and the Blake siblings would be sent on the mission to find her, but Monty wasn’t exactly their best tracker. It was an odd choice. Bellamy is a good hunter, Octavia is a fierce warrior, and Abby holds enough sway in their community to be taken seriously by the commander. But Monty’s specialty is electronics, which while incredibly useful is something that definitely won’t be needed for a shake-down of the grounders.

Then suddenly, Clarke is hit by a wave of panic. Even thinking about her family and friends makes her heart and lungs constrict. If just the thought of them triggers her, what will seeing them face-to-face do?

The comforting feeling of being Thalia is slipping away, making room for Clarke’s true self to come crashing through.

“I’m not ready to face them,” she tells Lexa. “I just got here. I’m not ready to be…”

She was going to say that she isn’t ready to be Clarke again, but it sounds foolish in her head. Lexa doesn’t seem to think it’s foolish and merely nods.

“I know. But they will ask me where you are, and I cannot lie to them.”

“They’ll probably think you’re lying anyway,” Clarke reasons.

Lexa gives no answer, but the expression on her face states plainly that she knows that the Sky People have no reason to trust her.

“I could…” Lexa clears her throat. “I could bring them here. To prove to them that you’re safe.”

“You can’t do that,” Clarke says immediately.

The _elev_ compound is a safe haven, and she can’t abide the thought of its whereabouts being revealed to anyone who might be tempted take advantage of that knowledge.

“I’ll write to them. I’ll give you a letter to give to them that says that I’m safe.”

“They will think you wrote it under duress.”

“Then I’ll say that you’re okay with putting them up in Polis until I’m ready to see them,” Clarke replies. She checks Lexa’s inscrutable expression and adds, “If that’s okay.”

“Yes.”

Lexa gives no further explanation as to why she would be okay with Sky People staying in Polis under her care or why she brought Clarke here in the first place. She appears to be wrapped up in her own thoughts, mulling over decisions that most people will never have to make.

“I heard about what you’ve done for the _loswans_ ,” Clarke says suddenly.

“Oh?”

“How you brought them here."

Clarke tries to let Lexa know that she knows about Lexa's merciful side without saying it explicitly.

“Not all of them,” is Lexa’s response. Clarke thinks that she might imagine Lexa’s next statement, it is so soft. “Not enough of them.”

“Are you going to send the refugees here as well? The ones who were being held in Mount Weather?”

“Some of them. Perhaps. There are hundreds of refugees from the mountain, Clarke. If I sent them all here, they would overwhelm the _elevs_ and the _loswans_. Most of them will stay the winter in Polis and gather their strength. If there are any who are still suffering by the time the spring months begin, I will send them here.”

Lexa’s voice is truly sorrowful and when Clarke steals a glance at her, her eyes are closed as if she’s riding out some physical pain.

“ _Matant_!”

Thesda is running back towards them, waving half of a brown loaf of bread at them.

“I can’t save them all, Clarke,” she says quietly.

Clarke feels Lexa’s words go straight to her heart and make it ache. She slowly puts her hand on top of Lexa’s and lets it rest there. When Lexa doesn’t move it away, Clarke tucks her fingers beneath Lexa’s and squeezes gently.

“I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _keryon_ \- soul  
>  _Em non ste hir_ \- she's not here
> 
> Thank you all for reading and commenting! This started out as a small project but it just keeps getting longer and longer. I would apologize, but I know that I personally am starved for Clexa fic during the hiatus and I can't be the only one. 
> 
> Please let me know what you think! Why is Monty with Abby, Bellamy, and Octavia? What is their plan of action? Are they going to be satisfied with Clarke's letter?


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Arkers arrive in Polis and meet with Lexa.

When Thesda returns, she is all too willing to let Clarke borrow her new pen and ink to write a letter to the Sky People.

Clarke doesn’t tell Thesda that she’s writing to Sky People, though, for which Lexa is grateful. She just says that she needs to write a letter to her family, and Thesda volunteers to show Clarke where her writing implements are.

“That’s okay,” Clarke says. “You stay here with your _matant_ and feed the ducks. It won’t take very long.”

“Okay.”

Thesda tells Clarke in great detail how to find her room and then how to find the pen and ink, which have been wrapped in cloth and stowed under her pillow for safekeeping. Only when Clarke assures Thesda that she will be able to find them is she allowed to leave.

“I like Thalia,” Thesda chirps as she tears off a hunk of bread and throws it to the nearest duck. “She’s nice. Did you know that a lot of her friends died?”

Lexa’s stomach clenches.

“Yes, I did.”

“Did you know them? Were they your friends too?”

“No.”

Part of the reason it had seemed to simple for Lexa to go back on her alliance with the _skaikru_ was because she hadn’t formed any particular attachments to anyone but Clarke. As long as Clarke was safe, the rest of the Sky People could go to hell for all she cared.

It is clear now that Clarke is not complete without her people, just as Lexa is not complete without hers. Lexa can't have one without the other, a fact which is painfully obvious as she tosses crumbs to the impatient ducks.

Luna’s words echo in her mind: “ _It is shameful._ ”

She hadn’t known any of the Mountain Men either, either the good or the bad. To her, they were just casualties of war, people who had benefitted from the slow, sadistic deaths of the _trikru_. But Clarke had lived with them, had eaten with them, had relied on some of them to help the others stay safe. They, too, had been a part of Clarke _kom skaikru_ and she had been forced to kill every last one of them.

Thesda tugs on Lexa’s pant leg.

“ _Matant_ , are you listening to me?”

“Yes, _zanj_ , I am sorry. What did you say?”

“I asked if you have any friends who died.”

“Yes.”

“Do you miss them?”

Lexa the _heda_ could not admit to missing her fallen friends. It shows weakness and sentimentality.

“Yes.”

Lexa the _heda_ does not exist in her bedroom. Lexa—just Lexa, stripped away of her title and her armor—is dependent on a sleeping draught to get through the night. No matter how strong she is in the daylight, in front of her people, she needs help to wade past the concourses of ghosts of the departed dead to finally make it to the land of sleep.

The same Lexa exists around Thesda. She lies about some things, but other things she is helpless to deny. She is vulnerable, which is both freeing and terrifying.

“Was my mother one of your friends?”

Lexa knew that this question would come up some time. She had hoped that she would have an answer prepared, something to tell Thesda that would really convey the essence of Costia.

“Yes.”

In this moment, though, she misses Costia so much that it is as though someone has filled her chest with arrows, and the words cannot come.

“Was she your best friend?”

“Yes.”

“What was she like?”

“She was wonderful.”

Perhaps when Thesda is older, Lexa will tell her about everything that transpired between her and Costia. Perhaps, then, the pain will be less. Perhaps Lexa will have better words.

But for now Thesda fixes her with an expression of childish scrutiny, as if she’s debating about whether or not she should keep asking questions. Lexa stays very still under the gaze, making no sudden movements.

Thesda decides that she is finished with her questions for now. Instead, she tells Lexa about her plan to keep the ducklings in her room all winter and teach them that she is their new mother. She shoos away the bigger ducks and lets the smallest ones eat out of her tiny palm.

When all the bread is gone, Thesda insists on climbing into Lexa’s lap and telling her all the things she has done to help “Thalia” feel welcome.

“How long is she going to stay here?” Thesda asks.

“As long as it takes,” Lexa replies, wrapping her arms more securely around her daughter.

 

_When Lexa came to see Thesda for the first time after Costia’s death, she had stayed for two whole months. She knew that she wasn’t ready to leave Thesda, but she also knew that she couldn’t leave her people without a leader. She met with Gustus a week after arriving and asked if he would act as her mouthpiece._

_Gustus did not ask why. He merely accepted this new role and took care of things until Lexa could return._

_Later, though, he told her that she could not disappear like that anymore. What was a_ heda _without her people? And what were her people without their_ heda _? From then, her visits to Thesda were kept to a strict minimum._

 

Clarke returns with the letter, which she hands to Lexa already folded.

“You can read it if you want,” Clarke says after a slight hesitation.

Lexa shakes her head.

“No. It is between you and your family.”

She trusts Clarke not to disclose the location of the _elev_ enclosure or the existence of Thesda.

And if the letter does tell the Sky People about one or both of those things?

Lexa feels as though she would deserve it.

She places the letter in her pack, then turns back to Clarke.

“Is there anything more you require?”

Clarke looks into Lexa’s eyes and it’s the longest they’ve held each others’ gaze since before the fall of the mountain. There is no fury or hatred in Clarke’s eyes now, only pain.

“Time,” she says at last.

“Of course. You will have as much time as you need.”

It is yet another promise that Lexa knows she cannot keep. If the Sky People make trouble, she will have to come get Clarke sooner rather than later. But she hopes, naively perhaps, that Clarke’s friends and family will respect her wishes.

It takes five days for the _skaukru_ emissaries to reach Polis. It should have only taken three days on foot, but they refused to travel at night and the days are getting shorter. On top of that, Lexa’s scouts told her that the Sky People had gotten lost several times. It is a wonder that they are able to make it to Polis at all since they do not have a member of the _trikru_ to guide them. Briefly she considers having her scouts approach the travelers and offer to show them the way, but it is unlikely that they will accept any sort of help. Besides, it gives Clarke more time with the _elevs_.

As soon as the emissaries arrive, Lexa has instructed her guards to bring them straight to the capitol building. She awaits their arrival on her throne, alone in the massive chamber. She reasons that perhaps if she meets them alone they will be more receptive to her message.

If it is not effective and the _skaikru_ put up a fight, her guards will be close at hand.

They file into the _tron plas_ in single file, led by Abby, who is followed by Octavia and Monty, with Bellamy bringing up the rear. All of them look fairly beat up by their time on the trail, and not one of them is happy to see her.

“Commander,” Abby says curtly.

“Chancellor,” Lexa returns. “Bellamy. Octavia. Monty.”

“ _Heda_ ,” Octavia mutters under her breath while Monty says nothing, only stares at Lexa with slightly terrified eyes, and Bellamy crosses his arms over his chest.

“What brings you to Polis?” Lexa asks.

“Where’s Clarke?” Bellamy demands, his voice low, even, and dangerous.

“I would have thought that she would be with the people she saved, preparing for the winter.”

“Cut the crap,” Abby says sharply. “She left, and you know that she did.”

“Do I?”

“We tracked her,” Bellamy says. “We followed her path into the woods. We found her drawing, and it looked like there had been two people there.”

Lexa doesn’t deign to respond to this. If they’re going to accuse her of kidnapping Clarke, they’re going to have to be the ones to say it.

“We lost the trail after that. Someone who knows how to cover their tracks took her.”

“Were there signs of a struggle?”

“There was blood on the mural.” Abby is staring hard at Lexa.

Lexa doesn’t reply.

“Did you take her?” Octavia asks, crossing her arms, at the same time Bellamy says, “You took her!”

“I did not take Clarke against her will,” Lexa says smoothly.

“So you deny knowing of her whereabouts?” Abby shoots back.

“No, I do not. I know where Clarke is.” There is an uproar from the four Sky People and Lexa does not continue until they are silent. “However, she was not taken against her will.”

“She came with you willingly?” Bellamy’s tone indicates his dubiousness.

“Yes.”

“Why should we believe you?” Abby challenges. “You haven’t been a woman of your word before, commander.” She spits the word out with much derision.

“I am not asking you to take me at my word.” Lexa picks up the letter from her throne’s armrest and holds it up. “But you should take Clarke at hers.”

There is a moment of hesitation before Bellamy strides over and snatches it from her hands with a glare. He takes it back to the other three and they huddle around and read it in a low murmur. They confer for several minutes, each of them throwing anxious looks at the commander every so often.

“Is it true?” Abby asks, turning around to face Lexa once more.

“I have no knowledge of what Clarke wrote,” Lexa replies. “Is what true?”

“That you’re willing to put us up here until Clarke is ready to come home?”

“I have rooms prepared in my own home to accommodate you.”

She had had her attendants get the room ready as soon as she had returned from the _elev_ enclosure. It wasn’t as though she didn’t have room to spare, and she would be remiss if she didn’t keep a close eye on her visitors for the duration of their stay.

“Why?” Bellamy raises his jaw confrontationally. “You left us all to die at Mount Weather. Why are you so eager to help us now?”

“Make no mistake, Bellamy, that I have no particular regard for you or your people as either individuals or groups. I do, however, hold Clarke of the Sky People in high esteem, and I respect the sacrifice she made at the mountain to save you. She has the makings of a great leader, but she will need time to recover from that decision. If giving food and shelter to those who have come looking for her will give her more time to recover, I am willing to do it.”

Even though Lexa had carefully chosen those words beforehand so she would not betray her deep yearning for Clarke and the growing regret for her own retreat at the mountain, she feels as though she has exposed too much. She raises her jaw to match Bellamy’s own aggressive stare.

“While we’re here,” Octavia begins, “Are we your prisoners or guests?”

“You will be my guests if you so choose. I would ask that if you do go wandering about the city that you allow my guards to accompany you.”

“To keep an eye on us?” Abby is frowning.

“Yes.” Lexa sees no point in lying to them. “But their presence will also allow you to move about freely. They will act as a sign of approval from me, so you will not be detained at every turn for being foreigners. Their presence will also allow you to buy any supplies you may desire.”

There is another conference between the four Sky People, only this one is nonverbal. They glance at one another, and Octavia is the first to nod.

“For now anyway,” Octavia says to Abby and Bellamy, who are visibly surprised by her quick acquiescence. “If she’s lying, we’ll find out soon enough.”

Abby clenches her fists in an effort to calm herself, and Bellamy lets out a huff and shifts his weight from one foot to the other.

“Fine,” Abby says at last. “We will take you up on your offer. But if you’re lying to us, we'll make you wish you hadn’t.”

“Understood.” Lexa gives a nod. “My guards will show you to your quarters. Octavia?”

The girl who belongs to neither the ground nor the sky stops and fixes Lexa with a disinterested look. The others, who had been heading towards the door, also stop to watch the altercation.

“May I have a private word with you?”

“Octavia, no—” Bellamy says, stepping in front of her.

“You may stay outside the door if you wish,” Lexa says. “If she needs you, she will be able to call.”

“I’ll be fine, Bell,” Octavia says, pushing past him. “Go with the Abby and Monty. I can take care of myself.”

“If anything happens to her, I’ll kill you,” Bellamy says by way of a farewell.

“Understood.”

The door closes and Lexa is left alone with Octavia, who has not come any closer or unfolded her arms. Lexa stands up from her throne and approaches her.

“What is the status of the winter preparation of your people?” Lexa asks.

“Why do you care?” Octavia presses her arms even closer to her chest. “Are you worried that we’ll loot your villages if we don’t have enough?”

“Yes.” The thought had crossed Lexa’s mind several times, but it isn’t her main motivation for asking. “But Clarke’s sacrifice would have been in vain if her people were to starve to death.”

Octavia’s eyes rake Lexa’s face searchingly. The girl still wears her _trikru_ clothing and wears her war paint, the whites of her eyes contrasting with the black of the paint.

“Speak true,” Octavia says.

“I will speak as truly as I am able.”

“Lincoln says that you refused to hand Clarke over when you made the deal with Mount Weather. They asked for her specifically and you said no.”

“Lincoln was not present at that exchange.” Lexa licks her lips, the feeling of having revealed too much returning in a wave of heat down her back.

“He told me he heard it from one of the few grounders who will still speak to him.” Octavia’s eyes are dark and intense. “Is it true?”

“Yes.”

“Are you in love with Clarke?”

“I'm trying to make amends.” Lexa fights the urge to take an unnaturally deep breath, for it will surely give away everything.

“That’s not what I asked. Is the reason you’re so eager to be accommodating and make sure that Clarke doesn’t go crazy because you’re trying to get into her pants?”

Lexa has never heard that specific phrase before, but she can guess what it means.

“No, I am not trying to win Clarke’s favor in order to pursue a romantic relationship with her,” Lexa replies truthfully. "I would never do that to her."

“You’re definitely in love with her,” Octavia confirms, nodding. “I thought so.”

She is so firm in her belief that Lexa doesn’t try to argue with her.

Oddly enough, this revelation makes Octavia relax and loosen her stance the slightest bit.

“We aren’t sure what we’re up against for the winter,” she tells Lexa candidly. “Lincoln tried to explain it to us, but we don't really know what's going to happen. Lincoln is back at Camp Jaha helping us trap and hunt and store as much as we can, but he doesn’t think it’s going to be enough. Are you going to offer us supplies?” Before Lexa can answer the question, Octavia continues. “That’s not going to go over well. They don’t trust you. If you sent a caravan of food and blankets, it would just get sent right back.”

“What if it came from another clan leader?” Lexa asks, her mind working quickly. “What if it came from someone who asked the _skaikru_ not to mention that they had received supplies because it would put her at odds with me?”

“Who are you thinking about?” Octavia asks.

“Have you heard of Luna of the Boat People?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Once again, thanks to everyone who has read thus far and/or left kudos and/or a comment! I'm really loving writing this story, and it's kind of mind-blowing that there are people out there who actually want to read it. Let me know what you think about the story so far or the characterization or about where you think the story is headed. :)
> 
> (PS- The scene where Lexa refuses to hand Clarke over to the Mountain Men isn't canon. I took it from my short fic "Negotiation," which I wrote because I thought it seemed like Cage would at least try to negotiate with Lexa for Clarke.)


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke is finally ready to meet with the Arkers.

Clarke has to have Thesda tell stories to her every night or she has nightmares. She figures it out the night after she writes the letter to her mom and Bellamy and Octavia and Monty. Up until then, Thesda had been coming to Clarke’s room around bedtime of her own volition and telling her stories. That night, though, Thesda is so tuckered out from her full day of showing Clarke around the enclosure that she falls asleep in Clarke’s bed while Clarke is getting ready to sleep.

Not wanting to wake her, Clarke carries the small girl to her own room and gently tucks her in.

It takes what feels like hours for Clarke to drift off, and when she finally does, it’s far from restful.

“Dear Mom, Bellamy, Octavia, and Monty,” someone is saying.

Clarke is in the tunnels of Mount Weather, lost and disoriented. The voice is coming from somewhere up ahead, but no matter how quickly she moves, they are always out of reach.

“I’m safe.” The person is reading her letter, word for word. “Lexa’s telling the truth—I went with her willingly. I can’t tell you where I am and I can’t tell you why I trust her not to kill me or you. I’m still furious with her for betraying us and I wouldn’t recommend entering into another alliance with her, but I know that she won’t hurt you and she won’t hurt me. For now, that’s enough.”

The word “enough” echoes around Clarke in a tight eddy.

“Please don’t do anything stupid. Mom, Bellamy, I’m looking at you especially. Monty, if you’re here to plant some sort of bomb, please don’t do it. I’ll come talk with you as soon as I can. Please be patient.”

Clarke stumbles around a bend in the tunnel and suddenly she is in the Ark, in the apartment where she grew up. Her mother is sitting on the couch, holding her letter. Abby glances at Clarke briefly, her face giving nothing away, then looks back at the piece of paper in front of her.

“Love, Clarke,” she finishes. She folds it up and places it on the table.

Clarke stands there uncomfortably, unsure if she should sit down or if she should turn around and leave. Abby stares at her blankly and gives no indication as to what she’s thinking or what she wants Clarke to do. It feels eerily like the time Clarke let her English lessons slide and ended up with a less-than-satisfactory grade. She doesn’t even move for fear of inciting her mother’s disappointment.

“Why?” Abby says. She shows emotion now, and it is a mixture of anger and hurt. “Why would you go with her? After what she did?”

“Mom, it’s complicated—” Clarke begins.

“It’s _enough_?” Abby sneers. “That little savage of a leader is enough for you? You trust her with your life? With our lives? After what she did?”

“She didn’t—” The words stick in Clarke’s mouth and grow bigger and bigger until she feels like she is going to be suffocated by them.

“Have you forgotten? _This_ is what she did.”

Abby gestures to her lap and to Clarke’s horror, her leg begins bleeding heavily. Clarke automatically steps forward to try to stop the flow with whatever is on hand. She uses her own hands at first, then grabs one of the threadbare pillows. No matter how hard she presses against the hole that has been drilled in her mother’s leg, the blood keeps spurting and spurting and the hole grows wider and wider. More holes appear on her legs and Clarke is helpless to keep up with their progress.

“Is this what you wanted all along?”

Clarke looks up from her bloody hands and sees that her mother is covered in the same blisters and burns as the radiation victims and she can feel tears burning in her eyes.

“Mom!” she chokes. “Mom, I didn’t mean for any of this to happen! Just stay with me, okay? Please?”

“Like you stayed with me?” Abby’s words come out in a ghastly burble and she falls back on the couch, lifeless.

Clarke wakes up then, her tears mingling with snot and sweat. Telling herself it was just a dream gets her heartrate back to normal, but she knows that she won’t be falling asleep again tonight. She gets up and walks around the enclosure’s perimeter until dawn breaks and the _elevs_ start going about their morning routine. It’s cold and she hasn’t brought a coat or a blanket, but she welcomes the clarity the frigid air gives her.

When she nears the south wall, Clarke hears a faint yelling from the building where everyone sleeps.

“Thalia! Thalia!”

Thesda sounds so worried and so desperate that Clarke breaks out in a run. She finds Thesda surrounded by concerned _elevs_ and breaks through their circle.

“I’m here, Thesda,” she says, kneeling on the ground next to her. “I’m here, I’m sorry.”

“I-I-I thought you w-w-were gone!”

Thesda is sobbing and Clarke wraps her in a hug. Seeing that Thesda is being taken care of, the other adults disperse, leaving Clarke and Thesda to themselves.

“ _M-m-matant_ asked me to t-t-take care of you,” Thesda hiccups. “And I woke up and you were gone and I thought you left me too and I didn’t take care of you and _matant_ will never forgive me!”

“Shhhhh,” Clarke soothes, rocking the girl in her arms. “I’m so sorry, I couldn’t sleep so I went for a walk.”

“Don’t _do that_.” Thesda is angry now. “You can’t just leave me!”

“I won’t,” Clarke promises.

Thesda lays her head against Clarke’s chest and for a moment they’re both still.

Later, when it’s time for sleep again, Thesda tells Clarke that they have to have the same bedtime. Clarke agrees, and once all their sleeping preparations have been made, Thesda crawls into bed with Clarke. She tells a story about a butterfly that wants to be a fish and when she can’t keep her lids open for another second, she mumbles one last thing.

“Don’t leave.”

From then on, Thesda sleeps in Clarke’s bed. Even if she’s too tired to tell a very good story, Clarke is still glad for the company. And it keeps the nightmares at bay, so she is grateful.

She shows her gratitude by doodling little things for Thesda during the day. Her talent is discovered when Thesda is working on her writing and Clarke absently picks up a piece of charcoal and sketches a duck on the floor of her room.

“Hey!” Thesda stops writing and gawks at it. “Hey! That’s really good! Can you draw it a friend?”

Clarke complies, quickly drawing another duck next to the first one, and Thesda abandons her assignment entirely.

“What else can you draw?” she demands. “Can you draw a snake? What about the trees? Can you draw me?”

“I can try,” Clarke says with a smile. “But you have to finish your work first.”

Thesda groans dramatically, but follows Clarke’s command. Once she shows that her paper has been filled with the letter J, Clarke tells her to hold still and begins sketching.

It’s a rough, quick sketch, but Clarke is still careful to get all of the details of Thesda right—her little freckles, the tight curls in her hair, her missing hand, her happy eyes.

When she’s done, Thesda looks at Clarke like she’s just handed her a star.

“That’s me!” she exclaims and throws her arms around Clarke’s neck. “Now can you draw you next to me?”

“Maybe tomorrow.” Clarke isn’t ready for a self-portrait.

“Can you draw _matant_ then?”

“Another time.” Just the thought of drawing Lexa’s dark, entrancing eyes is enough to make the room spin around Clarke a little. “How about this: when you finish your lessons, I’ll draw something for you.”

“ _Sha_!”

And so that’s how it goes. Sometimes Clarke sits in on Thesda’s lessons and learns about what the grounders have been up against since the bombs dropped and sometimes she helps out with tasks for the _elevs_ that don’t require her to be around a lot of people. But every evening, she draws something new for Thesda—usually animals, but sometimes places. Thesda is tickled by Clarke’s drawing of the dining hall (glimpsed only briefly a few times; she still can’t eat around other people) where Thesda is shoving potatoes in her mouth.

There are still moments where Clarke thinks about Mount Weather and thinks about her people, those in Camp Jaha and those in Polis, but the dread that accompanies those thoughts gets less and less strong every day.

The respite doesn’t last long.

Two weeks to the day since Clarke sent the letter to the Arkers in Polis, Lexa shows up in Clarke’s room just after sundown. Clarke is reading one of the books she borrowed from the library while Thesda does some chores in one of the other buildings.

“Hello, Clarke,” Lexa says, slipping the door shut behind her.

“Lexa.”

Clarke has also been thinking about Lexa a lot over the past two weeks. Particularly she has been thinking about an exchange that had happened in Bek’s history lesson.

 

_He had been teaching the children about the battle for the mountain (in simplified terms, of course) and explained how Lexa had broken her alliance with the_ skaikru _in order to get her people out of the mountain mostly unharmed._

_“That’s mean,” Riva, one of Thesda’s friends who was missing an absurd number of teeth, said bluntly. “She lied to Clarke. That’s not right.”_

_“You’re right,” Bek had replied. “But our_ heda _needed to get our people out of the mountain. Who else has feelings about what happened?”_

_Clarke did, but they were mostly of the stomach-churning variety, so she wasn’t going to say anything. Instead, she thought of ways she could politely excuse herself from the classroom._

_“I do.” A boy a little bit older than Thesda raised his hand. “I think_ heda _was right. The_ skaikru _are going to die in the winter anyway. It’s too cold and they don’t belong here. They belong in the sky.”_

_“Seneca.” Bek looked stern. “They can’t go back to the sky. And every life is valuable. You know that.”_

_“You asked me what I feel!” Seneca argued. “And I feel like_ heda _was right!”_

_“I do, too,” another student chimed in. “But not because I don’t think that the_ skaikru _will die anyway.”_

_“Oh? Please tell me more,” Bek encouraged._

_“I think that if Clarke_ kom skaikru _had been offered the same deal, she would have taken it.”_

_Clarke bit her tongue and started getting up from her seat in the back._

_“Can you explain why you think that?”_

_“There aren’t very many Sky People.” Clarke froze. “Not as many people as there were already here. Maybe Clarke would have thought that sacrificing our people wouldn’t be a problem because there are already so many of us and there aren’t as many of them.”_

_“You make an interesting point. Yes, Ellik?”_

_Bek indicated to one of the oldest children in the class, a quiet girl with short hair who was almost old enough to be initiated into the_ elev _lifestyle._

_“That’s what she did, though, isn’t it?”_

_“What do you mean?”_

_“When she had to choose between her people and the Mountain Men, she chose her people. That’s not different from what the_ heda _did.”_

_The comparison knocked the breath out of Clarke’s chest._

_“That’s why she’s such a good leader,”Ellik said. “She will do what it takes to survive.”_

_Clarke hadn’t stayed long enough to find out which leader Ellik was talking about. She left the class with a nod to Bek and stood out in the hallway trying to catch her breath. It didn’t matter who Ellik was talking about—it applied to both Clarke and Lexa._

 

“Hey,” Clarke says. “Listen, I’ve been thinking about things and I just wanted to say—”

That she’s sorry? Sorry that she berated Lexa for doing something that she herself would have done? Sorry that she said so many hateful, hurtful things?

Sorry that both of them have been put into positions of power where they have to make such crucial decisions?

“I’m glad to see you,” Clarke finishes lamely.

Lexa is clearly caught off-guard by the admission and allows herself to smile the tiniest bit.

“I am glad to see you as well,” she says.

For a moment the air crackles with the same power that had been building between them ever since they first met. But then the smile disappears from Lexa’s lips and Clarke knows that this is a political visit.

“Let me guess,” Clarke says before Lexa can speak. “The Sky People are getting restless.”

“I have held them off for as long as I could, but yes, they are impatient to see you.” Lexa is still standing near the door. “I told them that I would ask you if you are ready, but that I am powerless to make you do anything that you do not wish to do. I understand that I have not been able to give you enough time and for that I am sorry.”

Clarke is suddenly struck by how tired Lexa looks. While Clarke has been sheltered in the _elev_ compound, healing from the traumatic experiences of the past, Lexa has been dragging along her own experiences all while still being the leader of thousands and thousands of people. She could be in Polis attending to any number of other affairs or sleeping, but instead she’s here, making certain that Clarke is all right and asking sincerely about Clarke’s readiness to face her own people.

“I’ll come,” Clarke answers. “Are they back in Polis?”

“No, I have left them a fair distance away from the walls of this place. It is not a very long walk.”

In other words, they’re much closer to the _elev_ enclosure than Lexa would like, but she seems intent on making things as easy as possible for Clarke. Clarke’s heart tightens.

Clarke begins to put her shoes on.

“I’ll be ready in a minute. Let me leave a note for Thesda and then we can go.”

She grabs a piece of charcoal and writes a note right on the floor.

“Thesda—I’m just out for a walk with your _matant_. I’ll be back. I promise. Love, Thalia.” She draws a little heart by the word “love” and then stands back up.

Lexa is kneeling over by the portrait of Thesda, her fingers reaching out for the black strokes.

“Did you draw this?” she asks in a hushed voice.

“Yeah. Thesda wants me to add you and me next to her, but I haven’t gotten around to it.”

“It’s very good.” Lexa stands up and briskly brushes at the nonexistent dust on her knees. “Shall we go?”

Once they’re outside the wall, Lexa confidently leads them through the dark trees and underbrush. Having traveled with grounders—and specifically Lexa—before, Clarke isn’t expecting much conversation. Too much energy is being spent on surveying the surroundings and making as little noise as possible to waste it on talking.

Which is why Clarke is surprised when Lexa speaks up.

“How is she?”

“She’s good,” Clarke replies. “She’s healthy, which is good because some of the other kids are starting to get sick. Thesda tells me it’s not very serious, just some sneezing and coughing.”

“Is she attending her lessons?”

“Yes.”

“You wrote her a note. Can she read?” There is wonder in Lexa’s voice.

“She can read pretty well. Not big things, but she’ll be able to read my note just fine.”

“Oh.”

Lexa is so hungry for information about her daughter that Clarke can feel it heating up the cold night air.

“She’s kind, too,” Clarke says without being prompted. “She always makes sure that I have enough to eat and that I’m warm enough. And everyone loves her.”

“She told me about her plan for the ducklings. Has she implemented it yet?”

“Sort of.” Clarke smiles, remembering the whole rigmarole. “Adelfi wouldn’t let her keep the ducklings in her room like she wanted, but he allowed her to make a special pen for them in the barn and she is solely responsible for feeding them and making sure that they’re all right.”

“Such a big responsibility for such a little girl.”

“She reminds me all the time that she’s not a little girl anymore,” Clarke says fondly.

“I know she’s not.” Lexa’s voice is tired and laced with regret. Before Clarke can react, Lexa gestures to the woods in front of them. “Your friends and family are within calling distance.”

“Oh.” Now Clarke is unsure of her decision, thinking back to the nightmare of her mother bleeding to death. “Do you think I could have a buffer maybe?”

“I don’t know that word,” says Lexa shaking her head.

“It’s like something that is in front of something else to soften the impact.” It’s a clumsy definition at best, but Lexa seems to grasp it. “I don’t know if I can handle talking to all of them at once. Maybe you could send one of them here and they can fill me on what’s going on and then I can come back to see all of them to say goodbye?”

“You’re going to stay, then?” The words are meant to be careless, but there is obvious longing underneath them. Longing that seems to copy itself and becomes embedded in Clarke’s gut.

“Of course.” Clarke isn’t surprised by how naturally the promise comes.

“Thesda will be glad. Who should I send?”

Her mother will be emotional at seeing her daughter again, and that emotion could translate into anger or sadness. Either emotion seems overwhelming to Clarke, so she decides against Abby. Bellamy won’t be angry, but he will be firm in telling Clarke anything she wants to hear in order to get her to come with them to Camp Jaha. And Octavia? Clarke never quite knows what Octavia is thinking or what she will do.

“Monty, please.”

Lexa leaves and a ten or so minutes later Monty is walking cautiously in Clarke’s direction.

“Monty!”

Clarke is genuinely glad to see her friend and rushes forward to greet him. He gives her a warm embrace, relieved laughter bubbling out of him.

“It’s you! Bellamy and Abby were sure that Lexa was sending me to my death, but Octavia managed to convince them that it wasn’t a trap.”

“She did?” Once again Clarke is surprised by Octavia’s actions.

“Yeah, I think it probably has something to do with Luna or something. How are you? Are you okay?” Monty stands back and surveys Clarke for any indications of injuries or psychological damage.

“I’m safe,” she says simply. “Working on being okay, but safe. How are you? How is everything back at the Ark?”

“We’re getting along just fine now that we’ve got all the supplies we need.”

This is news to Clarke. Even though she spends all her time with the _elevs_ , she knows little to nothing about what is going on with her own people.

“Really? You were able to store up enough food to last through the winter? I haven’t been gone that long, have I?”

“No, we got some help from some of the grounders.”

“Really?” Clarke’s breath catches. “Did Lexa…?”

“No, no,” Monty says hurriedly. “The commander had nothing to do with it. In fact, you probably shouldn’t mention anything to her about it.”

“What? Why?”

“So on like our second day in Polis we were approached by one of the grounder leaders named Luna. I guess her people are the Boat People? Anyway, she said that she wanted to give us supplies to help us survive.”

“And mom and Bellamy went for that?”

“Not at all. It wasn’t until she told them that she doesn’t always get along with the commander that they seriously considered it. And then Octavia told them that Lincoln told her that Luna and her people aren’t like the other grounders.”

“And then they were okay with it?”

“Sort of. They made Luna show them exactly what she wanted to send and then radioed to Lincoln to tell him to inspect it after it arrived to make sure that everything looked all right,” Monty explains. “The caravan arrived a couple of days ago and Lincoln called and told us that everything was good.”

“That’s a relief.” Some of the weight of worrying about the other Arkers that Clarke hadn’t even realized she’d been carrying falls away. Then she realizes something. “Did you say you used a radio to talk with Lincoln?”

“Yeah.” Monty’s expression belies that he isn’t entirely sure where she’s going with this. “Why?”

“Is that why you’re here?” More relief. “To do technical stuff for the radio?”

“Well, yeah. I know you said in your note that I’m pretty much only good for building bombs and hacking into computer systems—”

“That’s not what I meant—”

“I know.” He flashes her a smile. “I was teasing. But we didn’t know exactly how far Polis was and there was no way we were going to come here without radios. And since Raven’s walking situation isn’t very stable, and because of...other stuff…I volunteered to come along and fiddle with it to make sure it worked. And it did.”

“I’m glad you did.” Clarke gives him another impulsive hug. “You’ve been solid ever since we landed. I’m grateful to have you here.”

“Thanks, Clarke.”

“What other stuff made you want to come?”

“Oh, it’s nothing.”

“Come on.” Clarke tries to meet his gaze, which is difficult given that he’s staring at the ground. “You can tell me.”

“I wanted to apologize.” When Clarke starts to protest, Monty shakes his head. “No, listen. I know that you left because of what you did in Mount Weather and I feel like it’s partially my fault. If I’d believed you when you first told me and Jasper that something wasn’t right, if we’d just left then, none of this would have happened. So I’m sorry that you had to make the choice between us and them because if I’d believed you sooner you wouldn’t have had to do that.”

“Monty…”

“And maybe if I hadn’t hacked into the system, we wouldn’t have even had the option of poisoning them all.” He looks at Clarke desperately. “We could have figured something else out. And then maybe Maya and the others would be okay and Jasper would talk to me.”

Clarke understands what Monty is feeling. It seems that since she left Camp Jaha, Jasper has transferred his hatred to another person that he felt was just as responsible for the genocide as Clarke is. It breaks her heart because Monty and Jasper have been through hell together and she knows how much they mean to each other.

“We could have figured something else out,” Monty repeats.

“We could have,” Clarke says. She is thinking of Lexa when she says it. “But we didn’t. All we can do now is move forward.”

She wishes that she could invite Monty and anyone else who was suffering from the battle of the mountain to come stay at the _elev_ enclosure. But she knows she can’t risk it.

So instead, Clarke gives Monty another hug and he hugs her back. They mourn together for things that few other people will ever understand. She knows that the hug won’t change the past or fix the current state of things, but it feels good just to connect with someone who understands.

And now she understands that she needs to see her mother and Bellamy and Octavia and connect with them like this. They won’t be able to leave Polis until she does, and they’re all needed back at the Ark for their own different reasons.

 “I think I’m ready to go see the others,” Clarke tells Monty as they step away from one another.

As they carefully pick their way through the forest with Monty in the lead, Clarke wonders who helps Lexa mourn now that Gustus and Anya are gone.

She wonders how long it’s been since Lexa was hugged.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke sees her mom for the first time since leaving Camp Jaha.

Lexa has stared in the face of death more times than she can count, but those brushes with her mortality pale in comparison to her current predicament.

When she had first approached the Sky People to tell them that Clarke only wanted to see Monty, she was worried that Bellamy was going to step forward and try to break her neck. She would have been able to handle herself quite capably, of course, but it would have been uncomfortable if she’d had to explain to Clarke why she’d injured one of the members of her rescue party.

Thankfully, Octavia stepped forward and convinced the others to let Monty go, leaving Lexa to stand there with her hand on her sword and pretend like Abby’s hatred toward her isn’t clinging onto her clothes like smoke.

Lexa has been hated before, both as a person and as a leader. She’s even been hated as both.

But this disdain Abby holds for her seems to bypass all other kinds of hatred entirely.

Lexa wonders if it is because she knows what transpired between the two young leaders before the battle of the mountain.

But she couldn’t know.

Could she?

They all stand there, no one at ease except for Octavia, who is more annoyed than on edge, until Monty comes back with Clarke in tow. All three Sky People stiffen to attention when they see her coming towards them, and it looks like Bellamy is going to take off in a sprint to greet her. He remembers himself at the last moment and lets Abby have the first embrace.

“Clarke!” Abby cries.

“Mom!”

“Oh, honey, you’re safe.” Abby holds her daughter close and closes her eyes. “I was so worried.”

“I know, Mom. I’m sorry.”

They stand like that for a good while until Abby pulls back and furtively wipes at her eyes.

“I shouldn’t keep you all to myself. Bellamy and Octavia have been anxious to see you as well.”

Clarke gives each of her friends a hug, although neither hug is as long or as emotionally-charged as the one between mother and daughter. The hug between Clarke and Octavia is brisk but not insincere and Octavia murmurs something that makes Clarke smile. The hug between Clarke and Bellamy is longer, and Bellamy is holding her like he’s afraid he’ll never see her again.

“It’s good to see you,” Bellamy tells her. “You’ve been missed.”

“Thanks, Bellamy. It’s good to see you, too.”

Lexa is standing off to the side of this reunion, telling herself that Clarke is equally glad to see all of her compatriots and that her happiness at seeing Bellamy isn’t unique. The way they confer, though, and the way Bellamy puts his hand on Clarke’s shoulder while telling her about all of the developments of their people in the last little while makes Lexa tighten her grip on her sword and look away.

“We’re going to make it through the winter.” Bellamy casts a wary glance in Lexa’s direction, which she ignores. He can’t know that she’s the reason that they’re all going to survive, and for a moment she enjoys feeling superior to him for knowing that. “Monty probably told you how, but we’ve got everything ready to go. So wherever you’re staying now, Camp Jaha will be just as comfortable and probably more safe.”

Lexa tightens her jaw. The _elev_ enclosure is one of the safest places in the land. This is in part because very few people are aware of its existence and in part because Lexa makes certain that there are always guards there. The _skaikru_ might have guns, which is undoubtedly what Bellamy is referring to, but the only reason they haven’t had cause to use those guns since the fall of the mountain is because Lexa told the clan leaders that if anyone attacks the Sky People they will be submitted to the cruelest torture she can orchestrate.

“I’m glad you’ll be safe,” Clarke tells him. “But I’m not—”

“Look at you.” Abby takes in her daughter’s attire. “Dressed like a monk, out in this weather without a coat! I’m glad you have proper boots, though. The walk back to Camp Jaha is fairly strenuous and—”

“Mom, I’m not going back with you,” Clarke says before her mother can cut her off again. “I’m sorry, but I can’t. I need time.”

“You’ll have plenty of time back among your own people.” Abby’s wearing a tight smile.

“I killed people, Mom.”

The joy that had surrounded the reunion is suddenly brought crashing down to earth, much like the Sky People themselves.

“That wasn’t just you, Clarke,” Bellamy interjects. “There were other people involved. I helped you pull the lever.”

“But I made the decision.’ Clarke shakes her head. “I shot President Wallace. I told Monty to hack into the system. I made the call that killed everyone living in Mount Weather. And even now, looking at your face, I’m reminded of that. I’m reminded of hearing your screams as they drilled into you and how I had to watch hundreds of people dying before my eyes just to make it stop. It’s less strong—the regret, the guilt, the…everything—than it was right afterwards, but that’s only because I have distance and am trying to find healing in my own way. I’ll come back,” Clarke promises. “Just not right now.”

“We’ve all done things we aren’t proud of,” Abby says. “On the Ark we sent one hundred of our children down here to die. We killed three hundred and twenty people because we needed to save oxygen. We killed even more people on our landing down here. Clarke, I’m not going to tell you that what we did was okay, but I understand what you’re going through.” Abby is pleading now. “Please come home.”

Lexa listens to Abby’s words carefully, noting that Abby had been one of her strongest opponents when she heard about Clarke and Lexa knowing about the missile aimed at Tondc. She remembers how furious Abby had been that Lexa would allow her own people to die to keep the upper hand against the mountain men. But instead of feeling indignant at being accused by a hypocrite, Lexa feels indifferent. Abby is not perfect, but neither is she. And life is precious. One should not celebrate the deaths of others, even if they were at the hand of an enemy.

The next words Abby speaks are quiet, as if they are meant for only Clarke’s ears, and her shoulders are slumped.

“I can’t lose you, too. Not again.”

“You won’t be losing me. I’ll come back.”

“What if something happens to you? I don’t trust the commander.”

“Nothing’s going to happen to me, Mom. You don’t have to trust the commander, but you do have to admit that she’s been true to her word so far.”

“Yes, I suppose she has been, but at Mount Weather—”

“At Mount Weather we all did things that weren’t ideal,” Clarke says firmly. Lexa is taken aback by how adamant she is. “She says I’m not going to be hurt here and I believe her. I need you to trust me.”

Abby looks like the last thing in the world she wants to do is trust Clarke that Lexa isn’t entirely reprehensible. Bellamy is also dubious about leaving Clarke behind.

“What if we give her the radio?” Monty asks. It’s the first he’s spoken in front of Lexa since she first told him that Clarke wanted to speak with him. He sounds nervous about challenging Abby. “If something goes wrong, she’ll be able to call. Or if nothing goes wrong, she’ll be able to call and say hi every once in a while.”

“I’m cool with that,” Octavia says with a shrug.

“Me, too,” Clarke says. “That’s a great idea. Thanks, Monty.”

“What if it breaks?” Abby says, crossing her arms.

“I’ll fix it.”

“You’re no Raven or Monty,” Bellamy reminds her. “Your area of expertise is medical, not mechanical.”

“I know, but I might be able to at least get it working again.”

There are, in fact, mechanical minds at work in the _elev_ enclosure, and Lexa is positive that that is what Clarke is thinking of.

“What if you can’t fix it?” Abby is determined not to let this go without a fight.

“Then I’ll send a letter.”

“Not good enough.”

“If Clarke’s radio breaks, I will bring either Monty or Raven back here to fix it,” Lexa says.

“But—”

Abby is undoubtedly winding up for an argument that won’t end until Clarke yields when Lexa hears something. She holds up a hand to shush the _skaikru_.

And hears it again.

Faint yelling that sounds like...

“Thalia!” There is no mistaking Thesda’s voice even from so far away. “ _Matant_?”

Lexa’s heart stops. Thesda shouldn’t be outside the walls at all, much less at night, much less when there are Sky People around. She needs to think of something fast, something that will keep Thesda safe and keep the _skaikru_ in the dark but her mind won’t move, it’s paralyzed, just like her legs, just like her mouth.

“What’s going on, Cl—”

“ _Shof op_ ,” Lexa hisses at the exact same time Clarke says, “Don’t say my name!”

“You have to leave,” Clarke tells her people, ushering them toward Polis. “You have to go, okay? Give me the radio and I promise I’ll call every week. That’s as much as I can promise you.”

Monty hands her the radio from his pack and even though Abby is irritated, she doesn’t interfere.

“Will you tell us what’s going on?” Bellamy asks.

“I can’t. It isn’t my secret to share. Just trust me. Please,” Clarke says. She turns to Lexa and begins speaking in Trigedasleng. It isn’t perfect by any means, but Clarke hasn’t been wasting her time with the _elevs_. “She’ll be okay. I’ll take care of her.”

“Thank you,” Lexa says. She shrugs off her cloak and gives to Clarke. “Put the radio in this. Please don’t tell Thesda about it.”

Clarke complies quickly and gives her mother and her friends one more hug.

“I’m sorry,” is all she says. “Be safe. Radio me when you get back to camp.”

She stops in front of Lexa, awkwardly holding the hidden radio in both hands. She shifts it to her left hand and puts her hand on Lexa’s shoulder and squeezes softly.

“It will be okay,” she says in Trigedasleng, eyes worried but still warm.

For a brief moment Lexa gets distracted wondering if Clarke’s eyes are warm with affection for Thesda or warm with affection for…

She shakes herself internally.

“Talk to Adelfi,” Lexa says through gritted teeth. “Tell him to tighten the security on the wall.”

“This isn’t Adelfi’s fault. It’s mine. She’s worried I won’t come back and since you… Well, I’ll fix it, okay?”

Clarke brushes her hand down the length of Lexa’s arm and takes her hand for a moment. Then she disappears through the trees to find Thesda.

Once Thesda’s small cries stop, Lexa allows herself to take one deep breath and then moves on.

“What was that all about?” Bellamy asks as she strides by him.

“That is none of your concern.”

“But if Clarke’s in danger—” Abby says.

“I have proven to you repeatedly that she is not!” Lexa snaps.

She remains stony in the face of their inquiries all the way back to Polis and escorts them personally to their own rooms in her home.

“Will you be leaving tomorrow?” she asks Abby in as cordial a voice as she can muster.

“Yes.”

“Good. I will prepare an escort for you to ensure that no harm comes to you.”

Abby is in the act of closing the door when Lexa says this, and her words make her stop.

“Why?” she asks with narrowed eyes. “Why are you doing all of this for us?”

Since she has already answered this question and others like it (although apparently not to Clarke’s mother’s satisfaction), Lexa ignores it and sets about arranging safe passage for Clarke’s people. The sooner they leave the capital, the better. It takes the better part of the night to recruit warriors and horses for the journey, and Lexa doesn’t stop moving for a moment in case her fears catch up with her.

When she stops in the kitchen for her nightly sleeping draught, she is surprised to see Octavia sitting at the table.

“ _Heda_.” Octavia nods.

“Octavia.” Lexa returns the gesture. “How may I be of service?”

“I’m not here to talk to you. Just here to think.”

Lexa supposes that she could take her sleeping draught and fall into bed, but she owes Octavia more than she is comfortable with. And she thinks she knows what this might be about.

“You should sleep,” she tells Octavia. “You will have an early start tomorrow.”

“Yeah…” Octavia fiddles with her knife, sticking the tip into the tabletop and trying to make it stand on its own. “Maybe.”

“Maybe?” Lexa avoids sitting down in case that makes their conversation seem too formal. She goes to a side table and retrieves the bag of herbs that contains the draught.

“Indra wants me to be her second again.”

“Does she?”

Lexa knows about this, of course. Indra had come to her in the week after the _skaikru_ had arrived in Polis and counseled with her in the matter. She had renounced Octavia for refusing the _heda’s_ orders to retreat at the battle of the mountain. Now, however, Indra thought that training Octavia to be one of them would benefit both groups of people. But she didn’t want to offend the _heda_ , so she asked for her permission to train a girl who had once deserted her post.

Octavia has a determination that even Lexa admires. She would make a great warrior, a credit to both _trikru_ and _skaikru_ , and she told Indra so.

“Yeah.”

“Do you wish to be her second once more?”

“Of course.” There is no hesitation in Octavia’s voice. “Being a warrior is the only time I really feel like myself. I can be strong and fierce and respected instead of being protected all the time.”

“Then why don’t you accept Indra’s offer?”

“I was planning on it, but when I told Bell, he totally freaked out. He said he couldn’t understand why I couldn’t be happy back with the others and just be a warrior there.” Octavia scoffs. “As if any of those people understand what it’s like to be a real warrior.”

The bitterness in her tone surprises Lexa.

“You do not wish to protect your people?”

“Only some of them are my people. I don’t know most of them, and they only know me as the wild girl who’s banging a grounder or the girl who was raised under the floorboards.”

“Raised under the floorboards?” Lexa stirs the powder into a cup of water.

“Yep. People on the Ark weren’t allowed to have more than one kid, so when my mom got pregnant with me, she kept it a secret and then would hide me under the floors for long periods of time and when they found out about it, they killed her and put me in a cell.”

Lexa lets out a long string of swearwords in Trigedasleng and Octavia laughs.

“People are always bitching about how the grounders live hard lives, but the shit we put up with on the Ark was just as bad,” Octavia says. “Worse, for some people. So yeah, Abby can talk all she wants about how hard it was to make the decision to kill people on the Ark so that the rest of them could live, but at least she and the council were the ones making the decision. It was my class of people who would have suffered the brunt of it.”

“It is hard for both the leader who makes the decision and the person who dies,” Lexa says softly.

“I guess.” Octavia shrugs. “Anyway, your people can be dicks, but mine are too, so I’m just going to go with the ones who suck the least. The grounders are seeming a lot less smothery right now, so I’ll probably accept Indra’s offer.”

“And if your brother does not support your decision?”

“He’ll have to deal with it.” She thunks her knife on the table for emphasis. “He’s been trying to protect me for too long. I’m done with that. I’m my own person.”

“It will be an honor to have you serving in my ranks.”

Lexa assumes that the talk is over, fully intending to take her draught upstairs and drink it and be unconscious until morning, so she starts to leave.

“ _Hod op_ ,” Octavia says. “Can I ask you something?”

“Yes.”

“That little girl in the woods. Is she really your niece?” Octavia sees Lexa’s expression harden and adds, “Relax, I’m not going to tell anyone. And don’t act so surprised that I picked up on what was going on. I speak your language, remember? I figured that wherever you took Clarke, she wouldn’t use her real name, and there’s really no reason why a child would call her aunt, so I took a stab. Looks like I was right.”

“And?”

Octavia already knows too much about Lexa’s weaknesses. If she wasn’t worried about Octavia’s allegiance before, Lexa certainly is now.

“And it’s obvious that you’re going out of your way to protect her. I can imagine that you have lots of enemies who would want her dead.”

“What do you want?” Lexa’s tone is deadly. She’s set the cup back down and is ready to attack at the smallest provocation.

“What?” Octavia looks genuinely startled by the hostility. “No, I’m not trying to blackmail you. I just feel bad for her is all. Does she know that you’re the _heda_?”

“No.”

“So you’re just some aunt who visits sometimes but you’re still like hyperprotective of her. It must suck.”

Lexa thinks back to what Clarke had begun to say before she rushed off to find Thesda. Something about Thesda worrying that Clarke wouldn’t come back because of Lexa’s own poor parenting patterns.

“I’m doing my best,” she says.

“Yeah, but is it really the best for her? I don’t mean to overstep my bounds here, but speaking as a girl who was stuffed under the floorboards for fifteen years, maybe coddling your niece isn’t the best option. At least I got to see my mom and brother every day. Your niece is just kind of by herself.”

“She has Clarke now.”

“But for how long?” Octavia asks frankly. “Clarke isn’t going to be around forever. Not if my brother and Abby have anything to say about it.”

“There are people who care for her.”

“The same way you could?”

“You don’t understand.” Lexa sinks wearily into a chair. “My position as _heda_ puts everyone I love in danger.”

“Everyone is in danger down here,” Octavia replies. “Try another excuse.”

“But my position puts my loved ones in a unique position to attract my enemies.”

“Yeah, I know about Costia.”

When Lexa shows her surprise, Octavia continues.

“Indra tried to warn me off of wanting to become a warrior because she was worried I’d get killed just for being her second. And then she tried to warn me again about my relationship with Lincoln, both before and after he became a _ripa_. She told me that not even the _heda_ was immune to the loss of loved ones during war. She warned me to protect my heart.

“And do you know what I think?” Octavia doesn’t wait for Lexa to respond. “I think that’s bullshit. Yeah, I could have lost Lincoln dozens of times when he was a _ripa_ or when we went into battle together. And he could have lost me. And my mom ended up being floated for hiding me anyway and I got sent down here to die.

“But you know what? I haven’t died yet. And Lincoln hasn’t died yet. And Bellamy hasn’t died yet. And when one of us does die, it’s going to hurt like nothing in my entire life has hurt. But at least I’ll have memories of them. Of Bell grinning at me or the way Lincoln holds me. I can remember my mom’s voice even now, even though she’s dead. What if you get killed in battle? Will your niece remember your voice? What if she gets sick suddenly and dies? Will you remember hers?

“Stop being such a goddamn coward and think about her needs above your own.”

Lexa puts her head in her hands and breathes deeply. Octavia has hit her repeatedly in the most tender spots of her heart, and there is only one thing to do.

“ _Mochof_ , Octavia,” she says.

Octavia was clearly expecting some sort of angry response and is taken aback by the words.

“Why are you thanking me?”

“For being honest.” She stands. “If Indra hadn’t made you her second, I would take you on as mine.”

“You’re just saying that,” Octavia says uncomfortably as she stands as well.

“I mean every word.”

Lexa extends her arm and Octavia clasps it.

“ _Mochof_ ,” Lexa repeats.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First things first- you all are wonderful and I am deeply grateful that you've all been reading and commenting and kudosing and recommending this story! Special shout out to Jude81 and 100hearteyes who always leave fantastic, thoughtful feedback. Frankly I'm thrilled just to get a kudos but the fact that they take the time to type out what they thought of the chapter? Above and beyond! (not to mention some of their suggestions or questions have resulted in edits/additions that made the story a hundred times better)
> 
> Secondly- what do you think? I'm going to wind this story down, probably ending with 14 or 15 chapters total. Unfortunately, it won't be 180,000 words like some Clexa fics (*cough*chrmdpoet*cough*). Please leave feedback!
> 
> [seriously if you haven't read"this heart, fossilized and silent (once was tender and once was violent)" you should definitely go read it]


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lexa and Clarke discuss Thesda's future

“I need to ask you something,” Lexa says to Clarke.

They are sitting against the wall of the barn where Thesda is playing with her duck wards. The ducks are far from the only animals inside and the air is thick with the warmth, smells, and sounds of the menagerie of creatures the  _elevs_  are raising.

Clarke had been surprised to see Lexa so soon after the encounter with the Arkers the previous evening and had immediately assumed that something had gone wrong with their departure. As soon as Clarke’s fears had been calmed on that front, Lexa explained that she was there to spend time with Thesda. Although Clarke didn't entirely believe this explanation, she didn't press Lexa.

Thesda had been thrilled to see her _matant_ since she had missed her the day before. She gave Lexa a tour of Clarke’s room, explaining each and every drawing in great detail. When Lexa proposed that they go see her ducks, Thesda smiled as wide as Clarke had ever seen her smile.

“Go ahead,” Clarke says.

“ _Matant_!” Thesda cries. “Watch!”

She places her two ducks (who she hadn’t named yet because she can’t decide on the right names) on top of a box and then taps the ground in front of it.

“Jump,” she tells them and they do with enthusiastic quacks.

Lexa and Clarke clap for Thesda and she looks like she might burst with happiness. She is standing on her tiptoes and her hair is fluffed up as high as it can go. Once Thesda is preoccupied with preparing her ducks to do another trick, Clarke looks back at Lexa, whose brow is furrowed.

“What is it?”

“You know why I have Thesda stay here, don’t you?”

“To keep her safe.” Clarke answers the question quickly. She wonders if she has done something wrong. If last night’s close call had been too close and Lexa is going to ask her to relocate.

The thought is so unwelcome that it physically hurts her.

“Do you think she’s safe here?”

Lexa has turned her gaze on Clarke now, her eyes piercing Clarke’s, demanding honesty.

“Of course.”

“Safer here than anywhere else?”

“I...I guess so.” Clarke is worried that she might give the wrong answer. “I haven’t seen enough of Earth to know if this is the safest place on the whole planet, but it’s safe enough.”

Clarke knows that she’s never felt safer anywhere on the ground than with the _elevs_. She can’t think of a time she’s felt more secure.

“Could she get sick here?” Lexa asks.

“What?”

“Is illness well-contained among the _elevs_?”

“There have been a few outbreaks here from what I’ve heard, but that was a while ago. I don’t think it’s a primary concern.” Clarke cocks her head to the side. “What is this about?”

Lexa ignores Clarke’s question and poses another one of her own.

“Do you think I am too absent from Thesda’s life?”

As a matter of fact, Clarke does. It breaks her heart to hear Thesda talk about Lexa sometimes, the wistful voice she uses and the resignation that she probably won’t see her _matant_ for a long while yet.

But Clarke also knows that it can’t be helped. She understands Lexa’s need to protect Thesda. She knows that if Lexa brings Thesda into the public eye as her daughter—or even just as her niece—Thesda will be in danger of getting captured by the Queen of the Ice Nation or any number of Lexa’s enemies.

Clarke’s silence is enough for Lexa. The commander lets out a slow breath and leans more fully into the wall.

“What is this about?” Clarke asks again.

“She could die,” Lexa says. “She could die from illness or an accident, and I won’t have spent enough time with her. Or I could die and she’ll be all alone in the world.”

“She isn’t going to die from illness or an accident.”

“Although some are calling you the _wanheda_ ,” Lexa says, “I do not believe that you have power over who lives and dies.”

“Fine, I can’t guarantee that she won’t die from forces beyond our control. But I can guarantee that she won’t be all alone,” Clarke returns fiercely. “She’ll have me.”

“You would take her back to your people?”

There is something in Lexa’s gaze that Clarke can’t pin down. It’s as though Lexa is warring with different emotions within herself and hasn’t decided which one ought to win. It is almost dizzying—relief, concern, protectiveness, and affection all swirl in Lexa’s eyes.

“You haven’t died yet,” Clarke says, shaking her head to clear it.

“When you are done healing, even if I am still alive, will you take Thesda with you?”

“Well…”

It’s more complicated than that. She would have to explain to the _elevs_ that Lexa had given her permission to take Thesda—which would only be in the unlikely event of Lexa giving her permission in the first place—and then she would have to explain to the Arkers why she had brought back a child from her wanderings.

But she can’t leave Thesda alone. Not after all she’s been through.

“I’ll figure something out,” she tells Lexa. “I don’t know how long I’m going to be staying. It’ll be a while before I leave.”

“You’re not going away, are you?” Thesda is standing in front of them, a duck under each arm, looking at Clarke with her wide brown eyes.

Neither of them had noticed that Thesda was listening to the tail end of their conversation.

“Not yet,” Clarke begins soothingly.

But Thesda will not be soothed.

“I don’t want you to leave,” she says over Clarke’s voice. “I don’t want you to go! You can’t go! Who will tell you stories if you go away? Who will make sure that you eat?”

“Thesda, it won’t happen for a while—”

“You have to stay, Thalia! You’re a _loswan_ and you’re sad but you’ve been getting better and if you go away you’ll get sad again and I won’t be there to help you. And you won’t ever come back.” Tears are coursing down Thesda’s cheeks. “You won’t ever come back and _matant_ won’t come back for a long, long time and I’ll be all alone again.”

“Hey.” Clarke gets on her knees and gently removes the ducks from Thesda’s grasp. Once free, the little birds waddle away to investigate other corners of the barn. Then she puts a hand on Thesda’s small, round shoulder and looks into her eyes. “We’ll figure something out, okay? It won’t be for a long time. And you won’t be all alone. You’ll have Bek and Riva and—”

“I don’t want Bek and Riva!” Thesda sobs and has trouble breathing. “I—want—my—family! _You_ are my family! You and _matant_! Please don’t go!”

Clarke tells her to breathe, but Thesda only cries harder. Clarke looks back at Lexa, who has stayed silent in the altercation thus far, to ask her to help. Although Lexa’s own are suspiciously watery, she sits forward and tries another tactic to soothe her daughter.

“Thesda,” she says, her voice rough with emotion. “Thesda, what would you say if I invited you to come stay with me for the midwinter festival?”

It is a surprising offer, catching Clarke off-guard—was this what Lexa had been directing their conversation towards? Asking Clarke if she thought it was a good idea?

It is enough to stop Thesda from wailing as she considers the offer. She wipes some of her tears away and sniffs up some of the snot with a series of unattractive snorts.

Clarke has heard bits and snatches about the midwinter festival from some of the youngest children in the enclosure. It sounded as though all of the clans celebrated it, but the celebration in Polis was the most exciting and grandest event of the year. Grounders came from all over to trade their wares to make sure that everyone had enough supplies to last through until spring. She hadn’t asked them what the commander usually did during the festival and no one had mentioned it. She wonders if Lexa will be able to make good on her promise or if Lexa will have to be the one orchestrating everything.

For Thesda’s sake, she hopes that Lexa’s role in the festival will be minimal.

“How long?” Thesda asks.

“The whole week,” Lexa promises.

“Can Thalia come?”

“If Thalia wants to.” Lexa glances at Clarke with such undisguised hope that it makes Clarke’s stomach drop.

For a moment, Clarke thinks about what it would be like to spend a week in Polis with Thesda and Lexa. Hearing peals of laughter as Lexa tickles Thesda. The three of them curling up under a blanket and listening to Thesda’s stories. Watching Lexa let Thesda play with her long brown hair. Walking around the city and looking at the clever crafts the grounders have made.

But then reality settles in and Clarke knows it would be ill advised. She still can’t be around lots of people without wanting to run away and hide. Even if she could or even if they stayed inside Lexa’s palace or whatever the whole week, there’s the chance that one of the grounders will recognize her.

And Lexa can’t afford the luxury of not being the _heda_ for the entire week.

“I want to,” Clarke says. “Really, I do. But I don’t know how smart it would be. Your _matant_ and I need to talk about it.”

She does not mention that it would be dangerous for both her and Thesda to attend, but Lexa understands the warning in her eyes.

“We do,” Lexa agrees. “Thesda, can you excuse us for a moment?”

Thesda looks between Clarke and Lexa, back and forth, immediately picking up that something important is going to happen that isn’t being said out loud.

“You lied to me,” she accuses Lexa. “You’re a liar.”

“I didn’t, I promise—”

“You don’t care about me.” Thesda’s cheeks flush red. Rather than being sad like she was before, she is angry. “You don’t want me to come to the midwinter festival. You don’t ever want me to come to Polis.  You don’t want me to go outside the walls and you don’t want me to be a warrior. You want me to stay here forever by myself! You don’t love me!”

“Thesda,” Clarke begins.

“I hate you!” Thesda screams at Lexa. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!”

She pushes Lexa as hard as she can and then runs out of the barn. Lexa gets up on her feet to follow her, but Clarke shakes her head.

“But I have to tell her that I’m not lying,” Lexa explains with such a brokenhearted expression that it makes Clarke’s chest ache.

“She’ll just get angrier. You need to let her cool off. Trust me.”

Thesda has only gotten this angry a couple of times since Clarke arrived. Once she had gotten mad at Seneca for saying something mean to her and when Clarke had tried to calm her down, Thesda had just yelled at her to stop taking Seneca’s side. After that, Clarke let Thesda’s anger run its course. Her anger is different from her sadness. In sadness, she needs to be reassured. In anger, she needs to be left alone.

Because Thesda is so precocious, sometimes Clarke forgets that she’s still only four and is subject to temper tantrums or other mood swings just like any other child. Clarke reminds herself that Thesda has a lifetime ahead of her to learn how to control her emotions.

Lexa must forget, too, judging by the look on her face.

“She said she hates me.” Lexa’s hands dangle at her sides.

“She didn’t mean it. Kids say stuff like that all the time. She’s upset and doesn’t know how to express it. Don’t take it personally.”

“I’m her mother, Clarke.” Lexa clenches her hand into a fist.

“Yeah, but she doesn’t know that.”

Clarke means it as a way to explain Thesda’s behavior, not as a jab at Lexa’s parenting abilities. Lexa, however, takes it in the worst way possible and sinks onto the dirt floor.

“I’m not a good mother,” she says quietly. “I’m not even a good _matant_.”

“You care about her,” Clarke says, settling down closer to Lexa than she would have a month ago. Their arms are touching. “I know you do. I know you love her more than anyone else in the world. And despite what she just said, I know that she loves you, too. She is always speaking with pride about her _matant_.”

Clarke swallows. “But I also know that you’re a good leader. And leaders have to make sacrifices in order to lead well.” She nudges Lexa gently. “That’s something you taught me.”

“But is it fair of me to ask her to make the same sacrifice?” Lexa sounds weary.

“I don’t know,” Clarke says honestly. “And I don’t think you can really know what the full consequences of your choice will be. You can only do what you think is best and hope it works out.”

The sound of cows lowing and chickens clucking fills the air between Clarke and Lexa. Clarke wishes she’d had a better answer for Lexa. She wishes she could have told her that what she was doing for Thesda was the right thing to do. She wishes she could be of some comfort.

“I spoke with Octavia,” Lexa say suddenly.

“What? When?”

“Before the _skaikru_ departed. She was telling me about her life on your ship. How she was kept under the floors to keep her safe.” Lexa still doesn’t look directly at Clarke. “Will you tell me what would have happened to her if they had discovered the pregnancy?”

“She would have been aborted,” Clarke replies. “They would have taken her out of her mother’s womb to die, and her mother would have been killed.”

“And if they had discovered her as an infant? Would they still have killed her?”

“No. She would have been imprisoned.”

“As an infant?”

“Yes.”

“And she still would have been sent with you and the others to Earth to die.”

“Yes.” Clarke hadn’t mentioned this particular detail to Lexa before, but apparently Octavia has filled in the gaps.

 “And still she survives.” There is a hint of wonder in Lexa’s expression. “She could have died so many times, but she did not. Instead she is as fierce a warrior as has ever lived among the _trikru_.”

Clarke doesn’t know where Lexa is planning to take their conversation, can’t even begin to guess. So she just sits there until Lexa is ready to speak again.

“Thesda wants to be a warrior. I do not want this life for her, and perhaps she will change her mind with time. But tell me, Clarke of the Sky People, she will always want her family, won’t she?”

Lexa turns to look at Clarke and Clarke nods.

“If I tell her who I am, if I bring her into my life more fully, will I be brave or foolish or selfish or kind?” she asks fervently. “If I am her mother as well as the _heda_ , will I fail in one or both roles?”

“I don’t know.” Clarke is sorrier than ever that she doesn’t have a better answer for Lexa. She knows that Lexa can’t talk about this with anyone else, that Lexa is asking questions she must have been carrying in her heart for four long years. “It’s a big decision and I don’t know what the right answer is. I don’t even know if there is a right answer.”

“You know Thesda better than I do,” Lexa states. When Clarke tries to protest, she is cut off. “No, I speak truly. You have spent more time with her than I have. You know her moods and her needs, her likes and her dislikes. You have told me that she will always yearn for her family, and I have no reason to doubt you. So I will ask you this—what should I do?”

Clarke thinks. Going to Thesda right now and telling her that she is the daughter of the _heda_ would be a bad idea. Dropping such big news on her after such a traumatic afternoon would make things messier, and that’s if Thesda believes them at all.

She thinks of what started the whole argument, how Thesda had become upset at the thought of Clarke leaving. She thinks of Lexa’s attempt to placate her daughter, and she gets an idea.

“When is the midwinter festival?” she asks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're in the home stretch, folks! Once again, I have to take a moment and say that this story wouldn't exist except in my head if you guys weren't such fantastic readers. I love hearing your feedback and your thoughts. I know that some people think it's stalkerish to comment after every update or on every chapter, but I am here to dispel that rumor. I love the people who regularly comment and let me know how I've done! It creates a dialogue that definitely improves the work in the end.
> 
> I hope you all have a wonderful week and that you are able to conquer whatever enormous tasks are in front of you. <3


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thesda and Clarke watch the heda speak at the commencement ceremony of the midwinter festival.

“Can you see, Thesda?”

Clarke has Thesda perched on her shoulders where Thesda is gripping to her head tightly. They are bundled up in layers and layers of clothing provided by Adelfi and the other _elevs_ for the purpose of braving the winter storms to travel to Polis for the festival. They were accompanied by Bek, who was assigned to document all of the _heda’_ s words at the opening ceremony. Lexa had offered to let other _elevs_ who wished to join in the merriment stay in her home for the week, but Adelfi had declined on their behalf.

“We will have our own celebration,” he had told her. “But please, take your niece and your companion. They are welcome to come back if they so desire.”

So Clarke, Thesda, and Bek had ridden on horseback into the capital just as the people were thronging the main square. Bek had slipped away somewhere more private where he could write down Lexa’s speech, leaving Clarke alone to blow on Thesda’s hand and wrists when they got too cold. They stomped their feet together in fun rhythms, their breath freezing on the scarves covering their mouths.

As more people filled the square, Clarke was afraid of losing Thesda in the crush and that Thesda wouldn’t be able to see any of the goings on, so up on her shoulders she went.

“Yes, I can see,” Thesda answers.

“Is anything happening up there?”

She feels Thesda shift slightly, adjusting her weight. Clarke shifts, too, so that Thesda won’t come toppling down.

“No. There are just a lot of people sitting up on the stage.”

“Can you see the _heda_ yet?”

Clarke and Lexa had agreed not to tell Thesda about Lexa’s true identity until later in the week. After Thesda got a taste of what it might be like to live with Lexa, they were going to let her decide if she wanted to stay with her full time. Clarke has specifically picked out this spot in the crowd so that Thesda would be able to hear Lexa speak, but not necessarily recognize her from such a distance.

“No. I don’t think she’s here.” Disappointment tinges her voice. “She is coming, right?”

“She’ll be here,” Clarke promises.

“Why isn’t _matant_ watching with us? Is it because she’s too busy?”

Clarke secures her grasp on Thesda’s legs. “She has some things she needed to take care of. We’ll see her later, okay?”

“Okay.”

Despite the abundance of bodies surrounding them and the large fire pits ensconced on both sides of the area, Clarke is still freezing. When the grounders had warned the Arkers about how brutal the winter was going to be, she’d had no idea that it would be this bad. It was bad enough at the _elev_ enclosure where she could stay indoors pretty much all day, but standing out in the open like this? Exposed on almost all sides? She wonders if she’ll ever be able to raise her eyebrows again. They feel like they’ve been frozen in place. And if it’s this bad for her, it must be miserable for little Thesda, who’s exposed to the harsh wind.

“Are you okay up there?” she asks, craning her head slightly to see what little of Thesda’s face is peeking out from her winter gear. She can see the pink tip of her nose and her eyelashes, which have little flecks of white on the ends.

“Yes,” comes Thesda’s muffled reply. “It’s cold.”

“We probably should have grabbed that extra blanket like Bek said we should.” Clarke smiles. Or she would have smiled if she had any feeling in her cheeks at all. “Even if we would have looked like an enormous, two-headed _pauna_.”

Clarke feels Thesda nod her head vigorously. Before either of them can continue the conversation, the air in the square changes. The easy, commiserating banter falls to a hush and it feels as though every last person is standing to attention. Not a single puff of frozen breath can be seen, everyone literally holding their breath. Clarke isn’t tall enough to see what’s going on, but she’s willing to bet that the _heda_ just made her appearance.

She wishes she could see Lexa. She wonders if her midwinter festival attire is different from her war attire, if Lexa is as bundled up as they are, if she is looking through the crowd for her daughter and her _skaikru_ friend, if she smiles when she recognizes Thesda’s bright face even through the multitude of layers…

“ _Mounin, kru ain_!”

Lexa’s voice rings over the heads of all the people, piercing straight through Clarke’s chest and making her breath catch. It’s been a few long weeks since she’d heard it last, and she is trying to tell herself that she’s surprised at how much she’s missed it.

She’s so wrapped up in pretending that Clarke almost misses Thesda stiffening on her shoulders, her little gloved arms gripping even tighter on Clarke’s head.

“Thalia,” she hisses. “Thalia!”

“What?” Clarke whispers.

Lexa continues speaking in Trigedasleng, welcoming all people from all clans to Polis for the festival and celebration. She gives a special welcome to all twelve clan leaders, who are seated up on the stage with her.

Thesda doesn’t say anything more. Clarke cranes her head once more to see Thesda’s face rapt with attention as her eyes trace the movements of the _heda_ from such a distance.

“What is it?” Clarke asks again, a little louder this time, causing one of the women next to her to tell her to be quiet.

Thesda still doesn’t answer. Rather than risk the wrath of their neighbor, Clarke reasons that if it’s important, Thesda will tell her about it after the speech.

As Clarke has only ever seen Lexa in war settings with her people, she isn’t sure what to expect from the peacetime _heda_. There are things that she has anticipated, of course. Lexa is generous, so it comes as no surprise to her that she speaks of the state of each of the clans and how they have all fared that winter. She says that the Valley People experienced a blight in their crops late in the harvest season and urges all people gathered there to donate what they can to assist them.

Clarke steals a glance at the people surrounding her. They are all as rapt as Thesda is. Not a single one of them would say no to even the slightest of their _heda_ ’s suggestions.

She feels inexplicably proud of Lexa. Proud that Lexa is who she is and proud that she can call Lexa her friend. Or companion. Or whatever they are. Because Lexa is doing good things—great things—no matter what the Arkers might say about her.

Speaking of the Sky People, Lexa mentions them briefly toward the end of her speech.

“It has come to my attention that my decree to leave the _skaikru_ be has been strictly obeyed,” she says. “That is very pleasing to me. There are those of us who think that we ought to continue to war against them, that they are as great a threat to us as the _maunon_ were, if not bigger. Those people are wrong. It is because of the _skaikru_ —and Clarke _kom skaikru_ in particular—that we do not have to worry about our people being turned into _ripas_ or harvested for their blood. If we leave them in peace, they will leave us in peace.”

There is a pause. Clarke aches to ask Thesda what Lexa is doing. Are her arms folded? Is she sitting on her throne? Is she scanning the crowd with a softened expression?

“That is what I want for you all,” Lexa says simply. “Peace. Let us have peace in our hearts as we celebrate the turning of the season.”

She shouts a word, which her people immediately echo back. It is too jumbled, too confused for Clarke to understand, and before she can puzzle it out, the crowd begins to heave and spread, everyone going in their own direction. Some must be going to the brightly lit travel houses that Clarke, Thesda, and Bek passed on their way in, and others must be going to their own houses to do whatever it is grounders did for the midwinter festival.

Once it has cleared a bit, Clarke gets Thesda down from her shoulders.

“What did you think of the _heda_?” Clarke asks, rubbing some feeling back into Thesda’s arms.

Thesda squints at Clarke, although whether it’s from the cold or because she’s suspicious is anyone’s guess. She’s quiet for a long time.

“Do you want to go see her up close?” Clarke asks.

Thesda shakes her head hesitantly.

“Hey.”

A familiar voice catches Clarke’s attention and she turns around to see Octavia standing there in full armor, which is hidden underneath a dark, thick cloak and hood.

“Octavia!” Clarke pulls her into a hug. “What are you doing here?”

“Indra is here for the festival, and I’m her second, so I go where she goes.”

“Wait, you’re her second again? But what about—”

“The whole deserting my post thing? Apparently she was willing to forgive that if the _heda_ was. Commander Lexa gave me a full pardon, so here I am.”

“And Bellamy?” Clarke knows that Octavia’s brother would have taken kindly to the news.

“He’s dealing.” Octavia shrugs. “I’m not doing much warrior work right now, though. Indra sent me to bring you two to…” She glances down at Thesda, who is staring at her fixedly. “To an undisclosed location on behalf of someone we both know.”

“As long as the undisclosed location has a fire, I’m ready to go,” Clarke answers. “How does that sound to you, Thesda? Thesda?”

Thesda is still staring at Octavia, two parts awed and one part shy. She scoots behind Clarke’s leg, never fully letting Octavia out of her sight. Clarke kneels down next to her.

“Hey, are you all right?”

“That’s Octavia,” Thesda whispers into her ear.

“Yeah, that’s her name. What—”

“That’s _Octavia_.” Thesda stresses every syllable, trying to make Clarke understand her meaning. “It’s Octavia _kom skaikru_! A Sky Person! My very first Sky Person!” She is both excited and terrified by the thought. “Do you— Do you think—” Her body is shaking and she can’t hold still.

“Let’s get you someplace warm, okay?” Clarke says, taking Thesda’s gloved hand and standing up. “And then you can ask Octavia all the questions you want.”

“I’ve heard a lot about you, Thesda,” Octavia says with a genuine smile. Thesda squeaks and darts to Clarke’s side. “I’d be happy to answer your questions.”

Clarke has questions of her own for her fellow Sky Person, but she knows that they’ll have to wait until Thesda is somewhere else. Even though she and Lexa are planning on telling Thesda about Lexa’s identity, they had never come to a consensus about what to do about Clarke’s identity. During the most recent conversation they had on the subject, they finally agreed that they would see how Thesda took Lexa’s revelation before deciding what to do about Clarke’s.

They follow Octavia down some tunnels, stopping only to light a torch that Octavia’s been carrying in her pack. Thesda keeps shooting glances up at the Sky Person’s face. Clarke thinks that if she had been able to see Thesda’s mouth through the thickly-wrapped scarf, it would have been wide open.

“DidyouhavepetsontheArk?” Thesda mumbles after five minutes of awed silence.

“Pets?” Octavia peers curiously at the little girl. “No, I don’t think anyone had pets. I don’t even think there were any animals on there.” She almost looks to Clarke for help to answer the question, then stops herself.

“No animals?” Thesda is briefly shocked out of her hero worship. “None at all?”

“I don’t think so.” Octavia takes a left at a fork in the tunnels without hesitating. “We barely had enough supplies and oxygen to keep the people alive. We made protein out of…something synthetic, probably.”

“So you never, ever saw an animal before you came here?”

“Nope.”

“What’s the first animal you saw?” Thesda demands.

Octavia thinks carefully. “A rabbit.”

“A rabbit?” Thesda is unimpressed. “Not a deer or a duck?”

“I think it was a rabbit. It was just a little guy darting through the underbrush.”

“That’s not very exciting.”

“Thesda!” Clarke scolds softly.

“It’s okay.” Octavia gives Clarke an amused smirk. “I’ve seen deer and ducks now. Does that count?”

“I guess,” Thesda huffs.

“I’ve seen butterflies that glow,” Octavia offers.

“What?” Thesda stops dead in her tracks.

“It’s true. There was a grove of them near where the drop ship landed.”

Thesda inserts herself in the space between Clarke and Octavia, now comfortable with the stranger enough to let go of Clarke’s hand.

“What else have you seen?” she asks.

Octavia lists off all of the weird and wild creatures she’s seen since landing on earth, her words punctuated by sighs or exclamations from Thesda. Clarke listens to all of it, feeling warm.

“Okay,” Octavia says as she stops in a dead-end tunnel. “Your _matant_ is going to meet you right here in just a minute.” She hands the torch to Clarke. “I’ve got to get back to Indra. She’s going to be drinking with the head of the Broadleaf People and things might get ugly.”

“You don’t need this?”

Octavia shakes her head. She gives Thesda an affectionate head pat, then disappears into the darkness.

“So what did you think of your very first Sky Person?” Clarke asks. “Did you like her?”

“Yes! Will we see her again this week? I have more questions!”

The cold is not as savage belowground as it is above, so Clarke grins, finally able to feel her cheeks. If there’s one thing that Thesda will never run out of, it’s questions.

“You’ll have to ask your _matant_ ,” Clarke says.

At this, the third of Thesda’s face that Clarke can see goes solemn

“Will she have time to see us this week?”

“Thesda, of course she will. She promised.”

“She might be busy again. Still.” Thesda scuffs her toe against the old tile.

Before Clarke can ask what’s on Thesda’s mind, Lexa’s voice comes from startlingly near Clarke’s shoulder.

“I promised I would have time to see you this week,” she says. “And I intend to keep that promise.”

Thesda doesn’t launch herself forward to attack Lexa with a hug. Instead, she keeps her eyes on the floor, as if she hadn’t heard Lexa at all. Out of the corner of her eye, Clarke sees Lexa’s mouth turn down with worry.

She is dressed in a charcoal gray rather than her customary black, and her hair has what looks like bits of silver ribbon laced into her braids. The black war paint is gone, but her face is not completely bare. Her eyes have been lined with a thin line of black paint, her eyelids lightly sprinkled with a shimmery green powder that makes her eyes pop.

But Thesda isn’t seeing any of that. She stands there, hands clasped behind her, refusing to look at her aunt.

This is not how this moment was supposed to go.

Clarke pivots on one foot and gathers Lexa into a hug.

Lexa is stiff at first, still hurt by Thesda’s sudden coldness. But once she realizes what Clarke is doing, her hands come up and clutch at Clarke’s back.

Clarke can detect a slight trembling in her hands.

“What did I do?” she whispers into Clarke’s ear.

Her breath smells like cinnamon, her clothes like the freshly fallen snow.

“You didn’t do anything,” Clarke reassures her quietly. “We’ll talk to her.” After a pause in which neither of them moves to leave the embrace, Clarke murmurs, “It’s good to see you.”

Lexa’s arms tighten around her and her hands grow steady again.

When they finally do pull apart, Clarke lingers for the briefest moment in front of Lexa, remembering the pressure of Lexa’s lips against hers. But there’s no time for that.

Maybe later.

But not now.

“Thesda, what’s wrong?” she asks, crouching down and trying to look her in the eyes.

“She doesn’t have time to see me,” Thesda mutters.

“Yes I do.” Lexa drops to her knees as well.

“No you don’t!” Thesda’s head snaps up. “You’re the _heda_! You have a million things you should be doing! You don’t have time for me! There are Valley People starving and there’s wars and things…” Thesda gestures wildly. “And that’s why you never had time for me before. You were the _heda_. And you’re still the _heda_. So you still don’t have time for me.”

Her childish logic cracks Clarke’s heart.  She wants to say something—anything—that will make Thesda know that she is loved, that she deserves all the time in the world.

But she instinctively feels like this is something that needs to be settled between Thesda and Lexa, without her intervention.

She edges back the slightest bit.

“I’m sorry,” Lexa says, her brow furrowed. “I was scared. Scared that I wouldn’t be able to take care of you and take care of our people at the same time. Your mother…” Thesda peeks cautiously up at Lexa. “Your mother and I… You are all I have left of her. You were meant to be my daughter. But I got scared and left you with the _elevs_. And now?” Lexa flashes a glance in Clarke’s direction. “I am still scared. But my love for you is greater than my fear of losing you.”

If she has any more words to say, they don’t pass her lips. She kneels with her head bowed, waiting for Thesda to pass judgement.

Clarke’s heart simultaneously beats in anticipation and aches in recognition of Lexa’s pain. She stands at Lexa's back, as if protecting her.

“What was her name?” Thesda asks quietly. “My mother.”

“Costia.” A combination of heartache and affection wash over Lexa’s features. “Her name was Costia.”

“Did you love her a lot?”

Lexa nods, unable to speak, unable to convey to this child just how much Costia meant to her.

“Do I look like her?”

Lexa hesitantly reaches a hand up to pull the scarf away from Thesda’s face. When Thesda doesn’t move away, Lexa removes the scarf. She hungrily runs her eyes over every line and curve on Thesda’s face.

“Yes.” A laugh-sob comes out of Lexa’s chest. “Yes, you look exactly like her.”

Thesda considers this. She doesn’t turn to Clarke for guidance. She keeps her eyes fixed squarely on Lexa. She thinks and thinks and thinks about this new information she’s been given.

Clarke squeezes her arms against her stomach and tenses her toes, waiting for some sort of answer.

“Can I call you mother?”

When Thesda asks this, Lexa’s face breaks into the widest smile Clarke has ever seen on her usually-somber face. Clarke feels tears stinging at the corners of her eyes and smiles as well.

Lexa nods again, overwhelmed. Clarke puts a hand on Lexa’s shoulder. Lexa immediately brings her hand up to cover it.

“If you want to,” Lexa says, her voice rough.

“I do.” Thesda beams at her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I lied. I said this would be the last chapter but then I wrote it and it broke in a very natural place so this is the penultimate chapter***.
> 
> Thank you guys so much for reading and commenting! Sorry for the long wait between chapters. Things have been cray this past little while. How was everyone's break? Good? Read a lot of gay stuff? Me too! Hit me up if you need gay book recs. :)
> 
> Let me know what you think! Did the Clexa hug meet expectations? I hope so.
> 
> ***insofar as I have control over the characters and the story, haha :P


	15. Chapter 15

They go with Lexa up to the _heda_ ’s palace where Clarke and Thesda have been given separate, but equally lush, rooms. Clarke helps Thesda get out of her wet snow clothes and has her stand by the fire while Lexa brings in some clean, fresh ones.

Thesda has been energized by the revelation that her _matant_ is actually her _nomon_ and also the _heda_ at the same time. She has been in a cycle of talking unceasingly and then having bouts of quiet as she considers her new status since Lexa scooped her up into her arms in the tunnels and carried her up the narrow set of stairs.

“ _Nomon_ , are we going to see any fights while we’re here?” Thesda asks as Clarke rubs a towel over her hair. “I don’t mean real fights, just the pretend ones where the warriors are showing off.”

“We’ll do whatever you want to do, _yongon_.” When Clarke glances at her, she’s still wearing that beautiful smile. “There will be a sparring match in a few days that I am going to be overseeing. You will have the best seat there.”

Lexa is standing to the side of Thesda’s bed preparations, looking anxious to help in whatever way she can.

“Lexa, why don’t you get her dressed while I unpack her things and get dressed myself?” Clarke asks.

Lexa nods, taking the task seriously. Thesda must sense that Lexa is slightly nervous because she doesn’t wiggle nearly as much as she usually does when Clarke is helping her. Clarke goes to the pack that she had carried on her back from the _elev_ enclosure and begins setting some clothes and Thesda’s little trinkets on one of the wicker chairs by the bed.

Clarke goes into the adjoining room to put on the clothes that Lexa has brought for her. They’re even softer than the _elev_ clothes, and Clarke begins to feel sleepy now that she’s warm and dry. She returns to Thesda’s room where Lexa is carefully wrapping Thesda’s feet in long strips of material to keep them warm, the grounder equivalent of socks.

Once she is dressed, Thesda gives Lexa an impulsive hug and kiss on the cheek and then bounces up onto the bed. She crawls under the covers, relishing in the softness of the multitudinous pillows.

“Now you get to tell me a story!” she says cheerfully. “Normally I tell Thalia stories to keep her from having bad dreams and sometimes she tells me stories too, but it’s your turn tonight.” She pats the bed on both sides of her. “Come on!”

Clarke slips under the covers on one side, Lexa on the other. Thesda burrows her head under Lexa’s arm, looking extremely content. Lexa shoots Clarke a smile that is both happy and bewildered.

“I don’t know what kind of story to tell.”

“That’s easy! Tell me a love story!”

Clarke is glad that Thesda will finally know all about her mother, about Costia, but she can’t help but feel a little cut out of the picture. Thesda and Lexa are a family now—always have been, now it’s just been cemented—and Costia is a part of it in a way that Clarke never will be. She’s just Thalia, a _loswan_.

She’s beginning to think of excuses to leave and go to her own room when Lexa begins.

“Once there was a girl. A leader of a proud and powerful people. She had seen many great things in her life, and many hard ones as well. She had had so much and lost so much.” Lexa is stroking Thesda’s arm.

“That’s you!” Thesda says.

Lexa smiles, nods, and continues. “And so she sealed her heart. She loved her people as a group only, never individuals because she was scared that they would be taken away. And then one day, she heard of people falling from the sky and wreaking havoc among the people she was sworn to protect.”

“The Sky People,” Thesda breathes, eyes widening. “I thought this was going to be about my other _nomon_. Did you fall in love with a Sky Person?”

“Let me tell the story, _yongon_ ,” Lexa says, chiding her softly. Thesda presses her lips together and snuggles closer.

“The girl met one of the Sky People, prepared to fight to the death for her peoples’ right to the land.” Lexa isn’t looking at Clarke—isn’t looking at anything really—but Clarke feels as though she’s being consumed by her shining green eyes. “The Sky Person… The Sky Person had a soul that the girl recognized immediately. She knew that the person had seen heartbreak and pain and knew how to be strong, how to make difficult decisions.

“And as the girl got to know the Sky Person more fully, her respect and admiration only deepened. She yearned to know everything about the person, to be allowed access to the deepest corners of their heart.”

Lexa fights to keep her voice steady. Clarke can feel the hesitation humming in the brief space between them.

“But the girl made a decision, one that hurt the Sky Person in every way possible. The Sky Person had too much to carry and no one to share it with. The grief and hatred were all-consuming.

“The girl tried to make amends. Poorly.”

Clarke remembers all of Lexa’s clumsy attempts to reconcile with her in the forest all those months ago. Following her. The food. Relinquishing all her weapons. Telling her about Thesda. She remembers the fury that had coursed through her body upon seeing Lexa’s face for the first time.

Fury that Lexa would think that it was still all right to care about her after leaving her to die at Mount Weather.

Fury at herself for still wanting Lexa to care.

Clarke has been so wrapped up in her own thoughts that she doesn’t realize that Lexa has paused her story until Thesda says, “What happened next?”

“The girl and the Sky Person are friends now, I think,” Lexa replies. “And the Sky Person has brought so much joy into the girl’s life that the girl doesn’t think she’ll ever be able to repay it.”

“Does the girl love the Sky Person?” Thesda prods.

“Yes.”

Clarke’s heart constricts, her breath catching.

“Does the Sky Person know?”

“The girl has not been direct in communicating her feelings.”

No, she hasn’t told Clarke that she loves her, but how could Clarke have missed it? She has been nothing but kind and thoughtful ever since they had been reunited after the mountain. She has been patient. She has shown parts of herself to Clarke that Clarke knows haven’t been seen in years.

Clarke has to remind herself to breathe.

Thesda doesn’t know about her identity yet. The child is so sharp that she could hardly miss such an obvious story. Clarke braces herself for the moment where Thesda realizes who “Thalia” really is.

“Well I think you should tell Octavia _kom skaikru_ that you love her,” says Thesda matter-of-factly. “She seems to really like you and I like her a lot and so does Thalia.”

“Octavia?” Clarke and Lexa echo at the same time.

“Yes! She’s the Sky Person, isn’t she? She’s brave and strong and she was angry with you at the mountain and now she’s here in Polis. Who else could it be?”

Clarke almost lets out a laugh. She would laugh except for the fact that she also feels an irrational pang of annoyance and jealousy that anyone would think that Lexa had placed her affection on Octavia.

Lexa just smiles and places a tender kiss on Thesda’s forehead.

“Goodnight, _yongon_ ,” she says, slipping out of the bed. “I shall see you in the morning.”

“Wait! Are you going to go tell her?” Thesda pushes the covers back. “Can I come with you?”

“Leave your _nomon_ alone,” Clarke says, pulling the covers back up to Thesda’s chest. She tries to sound as nonchalant as she can with her heart racing.

“But—”

“Here, I’ll tell you a story.”

“Is it a love story?”

Lexa quietly exits the room and Clarke can’t help watching her retreating figure with a touch of desperation. There’s so much she wants to say to her, words brimming up in her mind and heart.

She tells Thesda an adventure story that her father had told to her on the Ark and soon Thesda is fast asleep. Clarke blows out the candles—Thesda isn’t afraid of the dark—and goes into her own room.

Lexa is there by the window, standing with her hands clasped behind her back. She turns around when Clarke comes in.

“Clarke,” she says softly. “I am sorry.”

“For what?”

“For using how I feel about you as a bedtime story for Thesda. I…” Lexa hesitates. “I ought to have told you when we were alone. But she was asking about her mother and I didn’t want you to think…” Lexa lets out a breath. “I loved Costia. She was my first love, and I will always remember her fondly and with a pang in my chest.

“And yes, Thesda does look very much like Costia. And at first that was why I kept going back to see her at the _elev_ enclosure. But as she’s grown, I’ve begun to see her as she is, not as a ghost of the past.”

Lexa takes a few steps forward until she is only an arm’s length away.

“She has adopted some of your habits, you know,” she says.

“What?”

“Thesda has picked up your Sky accent when she speaks English. And she shakes the hair out of her eyes the same way you do—impatient, like the hair is getting in the way of something important. Even though her hair sticks straight up and yours hangs down.” A smile flits across her face. “You’ve had an impact on her. She was always a happy child, but she’s happier than ever now because of you. It’s because of you she knows who I am, that she’s coming to live with me.

“Clarke, she may have been in my care because of Costia, but she’s my daughter thanks to you.” She is looking directly in Clarke’s eyes. “I love you, Clarke. I love you and there is a place for you here. There is a place in this family if you would like to have it.”

Even though the walls were thick enough to outlast nuclear bombs, Clarke whispers. She doesn’t want to wake Thesda. She doesn’t want anyone to hear the words of her own heart being spoken aloud. They don’t belong to the world.

Her words—her heart—belong to Lexa alone.

She puts her arms around Lexa’s neck and holds her close.

“Thank you,” she whispers into Lexa’s ear. “Thank you.”

She knows that she should be more specific than that, but for the moment she is overwhelmed by gratitude and the feeling of Lexa’s warm body under her arms and against her chest and around her waist that she just wants to soak in it.

Lexa understands and doesn’t press Clarke to speak. Her steady breathing—although perhaps just a bit faster than normal—is calming and perfect and Clarke wants to stand like this forever.

“Thank you for not giving up on me.” She speaks in a mixture of Trigedasleng and English. “Thank you for taking me to the _elev_ enclosure and for treating the _skaikru_ who came to rescue me with civility. Thank you—” Clarke’s voice tightens. “Thank you for allowing me to meet Thesda. She is a miracle. I’m not saying that she’s not just a regular girl, too, because she is. She throws tantrums and lies sometimes and can ask the most embarrassing questions. But she’s human. She’s _real_. She showed me a future when I didn’t want one.

“She’d say ‘Thalia, let’s be sure to go feed the ducks next week, okay?’ when I couldn’t see past the next hour. A future that didn’t have to be strewn with the ghosts of the people I killed in Mount Weather. They would always—will always—be there, but Thesda helped me see that I could have meaning. It’s not that I can block out the ghosts. They’re still there. But they’re fainter. They can’t compete with the vibrant life that—” Clarke pulls back and looks into Lexa’s eyes. “The vibrant life that you’ve shown me.”

She brings her lips almost to Lexa’s. Lexa’s eyes flutter shut. Clarke keeps hers open, wanting to remember every line and lash.

“Thank you,” she whispers again, more a vibration than a sound. She slowly presses her lips to Lexa’s and thinks that their first kiss couldn’t possibly have felt this good.

It feels like warmth and comfort and _home_.

“I love you,” she breathes.

Lexa answers with another kiss, still as gentle as the one Clarke initiated, but with an undercurrent of needing. Clarke feels the needing tug on every nerve in her body and it is answered with its own want in equal measure. Clarke’s hand comes up to cup Lexa’s cheek, one of Lexa’s hands pressed to the small of her back and the other softly weaved into her hair.

Clarke backs them up until the back of Lexa’s legs hit the bed.

The world will know about them soon enough. For now, though, she plans on selfishly keeping every detail of Lexa to herself.

They sleep in the same bed all week. Clarke’s bed, specifically. Lexa is always certain to go back to her own bed before Thesda comes bounding in to tell Clarke the agenda for the day. Lexa yearns for the day when she might be in bed with Clarke—all tousled and groggy—all morning. For Thesda’s ever-present chatter, for breakfast, for just holding each other while the day burns away.

Perhaps one day, when Thesda knows the truth.

“Is Octavia _kom skaikru_ going to be at the sparring match today?” Thesda asks slyly when Lexa brings in a tray of food for them to eat.

“Perhaps,” Lexa replies. She notes with some satisfaction that Clarke appears as irritated as ever at Thesda’s theory about her _nomon_ ’s affections.

“Are you going to give a speech?”

“Yes, I will be speaking briefly at the beginning of the tournament.”

It will be Lexa’s first appearance in the festivities of the week in her role as _heda_ since the first night. The other days, she and her little family had walked around the markets and woods in their most unassuming clothes and enjoyed the atmosphere as civilians of Polis. Thesda’s eyes had grown wide when Lexa had told her that she was allowed to have anything that caught her fancy. Once the offer had been made, Lexa had glanced at Clarke, worried that she would disapprove of Thesda being spoiled. But Clarke’s radiant smile said otherwise. She had told Lexa later when Thesda was distracted by a juggling woman that Thesda deserved to be spoiled at least a little.

Lexa had wanted to take Clarke’s hand, then, and walk through the market as the couple they knew in their hearts they were. But everything was so new that they didn’t want to share it quite yet.

Once Thesda and Clarke have dressed themselves, Lexa ushers in some of her servants to help braid their hair while Lexa’s own hair is braided and her face paint is applied. Clarke’s golden strands are twisted and looped intricately, Thesda’s kinky curls are smoothed and tamed into the hairstyle of a warrior. She squeals when Clarke holds up a mirror and shows her what’s been done.

“Can I wear some of that?” Thesda asks as black paint is brushed onto Lexa’s temples. “So I can look like a real warrior?”

Lexa still has reservations about Thesda training to become a warrior. But it is the week of the midwinter festival and it’s not as though a little bit of paint will seal her fate forever. Still, it is jarring when she sees her daughter’s face partially masked by it. Thesda is running around the room, showing everyone how she and her _nomon_ look the same.

Clarke catches Lexa’s eye and gives her a questioning look. _Are you okay with this?_ Lexa lifts her shoulders in a small shrug, trying to ignore the foreboding that tells her what her nightmares will have in store for her tonight.

Some of the weight is lifted when Clarke declines the offer to have her face painted as well.

The servants finish their work and leave the room, going about the rest of their business. Lexa and her family are flanked by a sizeable selection of guards as they make their way to Polis’s central square. She holds Thesda’s hand, helping her up onto the wooden stage that has been built for the week. Clarke sits in the spot next to the _heda_ ’s chair, Thesda on her lap.

Thesda only stays on her lap for so long, though, before she begins getting up and zooming this way and that, trying to get her fill of the atmosphere. People have crowded onto all sides of the square, waiting to see the fights of the season. Even though gambling is discouraged, Lexa can see money changing hands, last minute bets before the tournament commences.

Annan nods at her from the corner of the stage, indicating that all of the competing warriors have been assembled behind the stage. They are ready.

“Good morning, my people!” Lexa cries to the crowd, who throw up their arms and voices in enthusiastic response. “We have been waiting for this day, to see our strongest and most skilled fighters display their prowess.” More yelling. Lexa can feel her heart surge. “But before we get to the tournament, I have an announcement to make.”

The yelling stalls. The _heda_ does not typically make announcements at sparring matches. Anything important or political is announced from the steps of the capitol building, a fact of which Lexa is well aware.

She steps back and offers her hand to Thesda, who is looking up at her with wide, slightly worried eyes. The worry is reflected in Clarke’s eyes as well, but Lexa inclines her head to let them both know that she knows what she’s doing. Thesda takes her hand with Clarke’s encouragement and hops off of her lap.

“This is my daughter, Thesda,” she says, her voice echoing off of the surrounding buildings. “She will be recognized as the daughter of the _heda_ from this day forth. And before the ugly rumors begin, yes, she is what some of you consider impure.”

The crowd rumbles and titters and shuffles and coughs.

“Do what you will, but I will no longer accept the idea that children who are born with scars and blisters and missing extremities are impure. They are our people, our flesh and blood, and we cannot abandon them as we have done so wantonly in the past. Not if we are going to survive.” Lexa picks Thesda up and puts her on her hip. Thesda, suddenly shy, buries her face into Lexa’s shoulder. “We are here now to celebrate our strongest warriors. But I will tell you that this child is more strong than any of you can fathom. And if we turn our backs on other children like her, we will be the poorer for it.”

“You think I’m strong?” Thesda whispers.

Lexa gives her a squeeze and kisses her forehead.

“Yes, _zanj_ ,” she murmurs. To the rest of her people she says, “Let the sparring commence!”

The roaring picks up again, although it is slightly less enthusiastic than before. The people are processing her words.

Two warriors—a man and a woman—enter the square and stand at the ready.

Lexa sits back down, keeping Thesda with her.

“Do you think it will make a difference?” Clarke asks Lexa under the clanging of swords.

“Not straight away,” Lexa replies. “But perhaps with time it may.”

The practice of leaving impure children to die is a cultural custom, not a law, but Lexa knows that the leaders of the clans will have something to say about it when she meets with them at the end of the week. She doesn’t care. What is the point of being the _heda_ if she can’t make the world better for her people? All of them, not just those who were born under fortunate circumstances.

Thesda is enraptured by the fighters, but Lexa has more fun watching Thesda than she does watching the actual sparring. By the time the tournament is over—it lasts several hours—Thesda has not declared herself bored even once.

“Can you teach me how to do that?” she asks Lexa as they stand to leave.

“How to do what?”

“All of it!” Thesda skips delightedly between Lexa and Clarke. “Thalia, can you believe that? What they can do?”

“It’s definitely cool,” Clarke answers with a smile.

“Let’s go home and you can show me right now!”

“Can we eat first?” Lexa asks. “That was a rather long tournament. Aren’t you hungry? I’m hungry.”

“How can I be hungry?” Thesda demands. “I’m too excited!”

“Food first, then I’m sure your _nomon_ will teach you a trick or two,” Clarke mediates.

Once they’ve arrived back home, Thesda eats two bites of bread and has one sip of water before declaring that she’s full. Clarke and Lexa work together to coax her to eat more until her plate is empty. Then Thesda has to sit while Clarke and Lexa finish their own meals.

“Finally!” she shouts when Clarke swallows her last mouthful.

Lexa takes them into a special training room, equipped with swords both wooden and metal. While Clarke settles onto a chair with her drawing book, Thesda immediately finds the biggest and heaviest sword and tries to lift it.

“Try this one.”

Thesda makes a face when Lexa hands her a sword more suitable for her size, but takes it anyway. Lexa teaches her how to hold it properly and how to stand. She swats Thesda’s rear which is sticking out comically far as Thesda grips the sword in her one hand.

When Lexa insists that Thesda can’t learn any thrusts or parries until she gets the stance right, Thesda sighs dramatically. She drops the wooden sword on the floor with a clatter and runs over to see what Clarke is drawing.

“Hey, it’s me!” she says with a grin.

Lexa leans over Clarke’s shoulder to see that she’s drawn Lexa, looking very serious about the task at hand, and Thesda, her tongue sticking out in concentration.

“Can I see what else you’ve drawn in there?” Thesda asks.

Clarke obliges and flips back through the pages. There’s Thesda training her ducks, Thesda doing her class work (which reminds Lexa that she needs to find someone to teach her lessons here in Polis), Thesda eating her dinner, Thesda laughing…

“Why do you draw me so much?”

“Because you make me happy,” Clarke says simply. “And because I want to remember you.”

“Remember me?” Panic washes over Thesda’s face. “Why do you want to remember me? Are you going somewhere? You can’t go! _Nomon_ , tell Thalia that she has to stay.”

“Thalia doesn’t have to stay if she doesn’t want to,” Lexa tells her. She can feel Clarke’s eyes on her face. “Of course she knows that we want her to stay, but if she wants to go, she can.”

She and Clarke had discussed this very topic the previous night as their legs were tangled together under the sheets.

“I should tell her,” Clarke had said, running a hand over Lexa’s bare shoulder. “She should know.”

“She doesn’t have to know now.” Lexa knew that Clarke worried that Thesda would think differently of her if she knew who she was and what she had done. “You have time.”

Clarke shook her head slowly, strands of her hair falling loose. Lexa tucked some of them back over her ear.

“The longer I wait, the harder it will be.”

Clarke flips absently through the blank pages of her book, pages that Lexa hopes will be filled with more scenes from Polis and their lives together.

“Do you want me to stay?” Clarke asks Thesda.

“Of course!”

“What if I wasn’t Thalia? Would you still want me to stay?”

This stumps Thesda for a moment and she looks to Lexa for clarification. When she finds no answer there, she looks back to Clarke.

“Who would you be besides Thalia?” she asks, the confusion apparent in her voice.

“Someone else,” Clarke replies. “Someone who has done bad things.”

“I don’t understand,” Thesda says.

“My name isn’t Thalia. It’s…” She takes a breath, one that Lexa mirrors. “It’s Clarke. Clarke Griffin of the Sky People.”

Shock writes itself on all of Thesda’s features. Her mouth gapes open, her eyebrows shoot up, her shoulders fall. For a long moment Lexa is worried that she’s stopped breathing. A strangled sort of squeal coming from the back of Thesda’s throat is the only thing indicating that her lungs are still taking in air.

Clarke looks up at Lexa, alarmed. Thesda’s high-pitched squealing becomes full on screaming and soon she’s running around the room, pumping her little arms and legs, and yelling at the top of her voice.

“CLARKE _KOM SKAIKRU_! CLARKE _KOM SKAIKRU_! CLARKE _KOM SKAIKRU_!”

“Is that a happy yell?” Clarke asks anxiously.

“I believe it is.” Lexa places a hand on Clarke’s shoulder.

Thesda comes to a dead halt in the middle of one of her laps and looks at the two of them.

“It wasn’t Octavia, was it?” she says to Lexa. “It was Clarke! You’re in love with Clarke and Thalia is Clarke and I am going to have two _nomons_ and we’re going to live in Polis and go visit all of the clans and _nomon kom skaikru_ will teach me to draw and _nomon heda_ will teach me to fight and we’re all going to be so happy!”

She launches herself onto Clarke’s lap, hugging her tightly around her neck.

And even though Lexa knows that there will be battles and training and long days and nightmares and arguments and tears and problems, her chest tightens with the knowledge that Thesda is right.

They are going to be happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for reading this! I had a fun time writing it and reading your feedback and thinking my way out of corners. (haha just kidding brainstorming was my least favorite part of writing it) And now it's done! Phew. I'm knackered.
> 
> Let me know what you thought of the ending! Sorry they didn't have a Sex Scene (tm). I felt hugely uncomfortable writing one and if you feel let down, I can recommend other fics where Clarke and Lexa Doing the Do (tm) is quite explicit and you can imagine that scene spliced into the last chapter here. I won't be the least bit offended.
> 
> I'll still write fics, of course, and if you have any questions or requests you're always free to leave a comment here or come on over to my tumblr (it's the same as my pen name here).


End file.
